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THE 



SCIENCE OF LIFE 



A TREATISE ON THE 



CAUSE, SYMPTOMS AND TREATMENT OF 

NERVOUS AND PHYSICAL DEBILITY, 

SPERMATORRHOEA, AND THE 

SECRET INFIRMITIES 

OF YOUTH. 



ILLUSTRATED WITH CASES. 



BY DR. J. JACQUES, 



Member of the Royal College of Surgeons, Doctor of Medicine, and 
Demonstrator of Anatomy and Surgery. 

No. 148 WEST LOMBARD STREET, 

(Between Hanover and Sharp Streets,) 

Baltimore, m:d. 



J^ 



Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1874, 

BY DR. J. JACQUES, 

In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, D. C. 






CONTENTS. 

PAGE. 

Introduction , 5 

CHAPTER I. 

Anatomy of the Urinary and Generative Organs. . 9 

CHAPTER II. 
Onanism and its Destructive Consequences 22 

CHAPTER III. 
Marriage and its Obligations 42 

CHAPTER IV. 
Spermatorrhoea 47 

CHAPTER V. 
Treatment of Spermatorrhoea 62 

CHAPTER VI. 
Eruptions of the Skin 75 

CHAPTER VII. 
Special Diseases. . .* 85 

CHAPTER VIII. 
Self Diagnoses 106 



Notes from Case-Book 112 

To Patients and Invalid Readers 123 



INTRODUCTION. 



The continued extensive demand for my 
Lectures makes it but too plain that the yices 
therein condemned are still rife, notwithstand- 
ing all that has been done by philanthropists 
with the view of arresting them. 

The reader will perhaps' suppose that I am 
conjuring up a phantom. He may ask in as- 
tonishment, what are the evils into which men 
dare not or will not enquire ? 

In reply, self-abuse on the one hand, and 
venereal affections on the other. These two 
evils are, more than everything else, the wide- 
spreading and often the unsuspected causes of 
physical and moral degradation ; a degradation 
affecting not their immediate victims alone, but 
extending to remote generations. It is scarcely 
too much to say that every man and woman in 
the civilized world would have been stronger, 
healthier, more beautiful; would have felt a 
1* 



6 INTRODUCTION". 

brighter, intenser life, had these scourges never 
been known. 

Health is essential to happiness ; and to enjoy 
health we must study the unchanging laws 
which govern it, and they are not difficult to 
understand. When we see the miserable victims 
of an insidious and unsuspected disease slowly 
but steadily emaciating ; when we view a series 
of phenomena faintly and indistinctly charac- 
teristic of a great variety of disorders, such as 
consumption, wasting away, loss of energy, 
physical and mental, and actual brain disease, 
can we surrender without remorse — secundum 
artem, as it were — the unhappy sufferer to his 
fate ? Shall we not rather, despite false delicacy, 
investigate the origin and causes of such diseases, 
and endeavor to determine the true principles 
of their cure? To these investigations the 
microscope has proved an invaluable assistance, 
and the most important recent discoveries are 
due to its aid. 

To this part of the subject I have paid the 
most anxious and untiring attention from a 
very early period of my professional career. It 
is one in fact, that not a day passes in which I 
am not consulted, either by professional visits, 



INTRODUCTION. 7 

or by correspondents in different parts of the 
country, and I feel that I am not exceeding the 
limits of truth, or transgressing the bounds of 
professional etiquette, in asserting that my mode 
of practice, suggested and improved by long and 
multiplied experience, has been productive of 
the happiest and most successful results in the 
treatment of sexual debility. During my prac- 
tice, also, I have too frequently marked the 
great extent of constitutional disease, primarily 
springing from neglect or maltreatment of 
syphilitic diseases. Any medical man who will 
make it his study, as it has been mine to inves- 
tigate as far as possible in every case, the original 
channel through which disease or constitutional 
disorder first found its entry into the system, 
will be astonished at the mass of human suffer- 
ing which may be traced to venereal origin, 
although its primary symptoms may have been 
for years apparently eradicated from the frame. 
I therefore abandoned an extensive general 
practice, and resolved to devote myself exclu- 
sively to the treatment of this class of maladies, 
in the hope of being able to effect some improve- 
ment. To this determination I have steadily 
adhered for nearly a quarter of a century, and 



8 INTRODUCTION". 

have, in consequence, accumulated an amount 
of experience vastly greater than can fall to the 
lot of any general practitioner. 

J. JACQUES, M. D., 

148 West Lombard Street, 

Baltimore. 



THE SCIENCE OF LIFE 



CHAPTER I. 



THE ANATOMY OF THE URINARY AND GENERA- 
TIVE ORGANS. 

Ik order fully to understand, the nature and 
treatment of the disorders resulting from the 
abuse of the reproductive function, it will be 
necessary that the general reader be informed of 
the exact position, form, structure, and use of 
the various parts of the human body which con- 
stitute what may be termed the "generative 
apparatus" These papers, as before stated, 
being intended for popular use, need only con- 
tain such a description of the male organs, as will 
render the further inquiry into the subject clear 
and intelligible. The physiology of each organ, 
so far as they are known, will be stated, and 
afterwards their pathology ; for it is impossible 
to draw a line of demarcation between the states 
of Health and Disease, — they are so closely re- 



10 THE SCIENCE OF LIFE. 

lated, that neither can be studied with advan- 
tage unless in connection with the other. Equally- 
close is the relation of Hygiene (or the art oi 
preserving the body in health) to Therapeutics 
(which is the art of curing disease); and thus, 
in proportion as our system of treatment loses 
its empirical character by being based on scien- 
tific principles, will it increase in perfection and 
success. 

The organs of the Generative system in man 
may be divided into external and internal ; the 
former consisting of the testicles and penis ; and 
the latter of the seminal vessels, seminal bladders, 
and prostate glands. The Urinary organs con- 
sist of the kidneys, ureters, bladder, and urethra, 
all of which are internal except the urethra. 
We will take the urinary organs first, commenc- 
ing with the kidneys. 

The Kidneys (Renes) are two glands lying 
close upon the muscles of the loins, behind and 
below the stomach, resembling in form a French 
bean, and are called conglomerate glands. Their 
outer structure is cortical or glandular; the 
inner, consisting of minute cells, forming at first 
into small canals and afterwards into tubes, 
which terminate and open into the ureters. 



THE SCIENCE OE LIFE. 11 

The Ureters are long membraneous tubes or 
canals which connect the kidneys with the blad- 
der, and convey the urine, when secreted in the 
former, to the latter. There is one to each kid- 
ney; sometimes (but rarely) two. 

The Bladder {Vesica Urinaria) is a mem- 
braneous and muscular bag or pouch, situated 
in the middle of the pelvis or basin of the body 
below the abdomen, and is divided into anterior, 
posterior, and lateral portions, the lower part of 
which is called the neck, terminating in the 
urethra or urinary canal, which is the common 
exit of the urine from the body. The bladder 
is composed of four coats or coverings, the ex- 
ternal being the peritoneal (or serous) membrane; 
the next, the muscular ; then the nervous (or 
cellular); and lastly the mucous (or villous), 
which is the internal lining. All these organs 
have their arteries, veins, nerves, and absorbents, 
which serve for the purposes of nutrition, vital- 
ity, and secretion. 

We now arrive at the Generative Organs 
in man — (and here, the reader's attention is par- 
ticularly requested), — commencing with — 

The Testicles (Testes) ; two spermatic glands 
enclosed in one peculiar bag termed the scrotum, 



12 THE SCIENCE OF LIFE. 

divided interiorly into two compartments, exter- 
nally formed by a common skin or integument, 
which in the external centre forms a ridge, called 
the raphe, on each side, and in the middle of 
this bag is a cell or cavity, in which the gland 
of the testicle is situated. These glands are 
composed of a vast number of fine tubes, folded 
in various directions and encased in a fibrous 
membrane called the tunica albuginea, proper to 
each alone, and again surrounded by one mem- 
brane common to both testicles, called the tunica 
vaginalis; over this there is a muscular coat 
called the cremaster, and exterior to that the 
cellular substance termed the dartos, lying 
directly under the outer skin, which in persons 
in health is generally puckered or wrinkled. 
On the upper and posterior portion of the gland 
of each testicle is situated the epididymis, which 
is a network of vascular cells consisting of 
minute seminal tubes, terminating in the efferent 
vessels, which are from twelve to thirty in number, 
and when spread out form an united average 
length of eight feet, each being rather more than 
seven inches long. These vasa efferentia, or 
efferent vessels of the epididymis, terminate in 
two ducts, called 



THE SCIENCE OF LIFE. 13 

The Seminal Canals ( Vasa Deferentia), which 
ascend on each side from the upper portion of 
each testicle, and accompany the spermatic 
artery, vein, and nerves, which together form 
what is termed the spermatic corcl. This cord 
passes upwards ti. agh the groin, and thence 
laterally attached and across to the back and 
lower part of the bladder, where it approaches 
its fellow and terminates in the seminal Madders,, 
from each of which, receiving a branch, they 
emerge, and forming the ejaculatory ducts,, open 
into the urethra, which they enter on each side 
at the base of the prostate gland. 

The Seminal Bladders {Vesiciblcz Seminales) 
are situated at the u^der part of the bladder, 
and are close to each other except at their upper 
extremities. A mucous membrane lines each of 
these bladders, which are considered to be the 
reservoirs for the secretion of the testicles, in the • 
same relation as the urinary bladder is to the - 
kidneys. 

The Prostate Gland is situated directly in: 
front of the seminal bladders, and surrounds the 
root of the urethra just at the neck of the blad- 
der; it is a firm glandular mass, in form resem- 
bling a carved chesnut. 
2 



14 THE SCIENCE OF LIFE. 

The Penis (Membrum Virile) is divided into 
the root, the body, and the glands or head; the 
first attached to the arch of the pelvis by the 
suspensory ligament, secured on each side by 
three muscles, termed the erector penis, trans- 
versalis perinwi, and transversalis perincei alter ; 
these muscles assist materially in the functions 
of the organ. Another muscle also, termed the 
accelerator urinm, or ejaculator seminis, rising 
from the membraneous and terminating at the 
fbulbous portion of the urethra, is in connection 
with these ; its name at once explaining its func- 
tion. The body of the penis is composed of 
^cavernous bodies, the vessels, nerves, and the 
urethra. The upper surface of the penis is called 
; the dorsum, or corpus cavernosum, and extends 
from the root to the ridge of the glands ; there 
is a groove on the upper side for the vessels and 
nerves, and one on the lower, into which the 
urethra passes; and encasing these parts is a 
firm elastic tissue, the continuation of which 
forms the prepuce or foreskin, which covers the 
gland or nut of -the penis. 

The Urethra (or seminal and urinary canal) 
commences from rthe neck of the bladder, passes 
through the prostate gland, that portion of 



THE SCIENCE OE LIFE. 15 

which is termed the prostate portion of the ure- 
thra. Here the seminal ducts open into it for 
the conveyance of the seed; afterwards passing 
under the bony arch of the pubes or share bone, 
the urethra assumes the character of a membra- 
neouspipe (membraneous portion). The urethra 
then acquires a spongy and fibrous tissue, which 
continues to surround it, when it expands into 
the top or extremity of the whole, called the 
glans penis. The urethra is a most delicate and 
important structure, and its interior surface is 
lined with a very sensitive mucous membrane, 
having several oblique ducts, called lactmce, 
which furnish a secretion to prevent the abra- 
sion of its surface from acrid urine. 

Lastly, the Glans, or head of the penis, pro- 
tected by the prepuce or foreskin, is abundantly 
filled with arteries, veins, nerves and absorbents, 
and invested with a soft smooth outer skin, and 
endowed with peculiar sensibility. This com- 
pletes the popular anatomy of the organs of 
generation, as far as it is here necessary to ex- 
plain it. 

Having cursorily reviewed the anatomy, we 
now arrive at the physiology, of the Urinary 
and Sexual Organs; the former of which, as 



16 THE SCIENCE OF LIFE. 

subsidiary to the latter, I shall but briefly men- 
tion. The kidneys are employed for the purpose 
of secreting the urine from the blood, which is 
conveyed to them by the emulgent arteries. On 
the entrance of the artery into each kidney, it 
divides into very minute branches and ramifica- 
tions, and terminates in a capillary net-work, 
from which the secretion of urine from the blood 
ensues. It is formed drop by drop, and passes 
out of the kidneys, through the ureters, into the 
bladder; whence, after collecting in a certain 
quantity it is evacuated, and passing through 
the urethra, is thus expelled from the body. In 
addition to the benefit that the system derives 
from the secretion of urine relieving it of a 
superfluous fluid, the blood is evidently im- 
proved, and the whole system considerably bene- 
fited, by the withdrawal of a certain number of 
saline and deleterious substances which the urine 
carries off in solution, and which, according to 
Berzelius, amount to fifteen. These generally 
exist in the human urine, but the fluid occasion- 
ally contains in a morbid condition of the system, 
many other substances, as albumen, bile, sugar, 
fat, fibrin, blood, milk, and purulent matter. In 
fact, there is scarcely any other fluid in nature 



THE SCIENCE OF LIFE. 17 

that contains so many substances dissolved in it. 
The deleterious and heterogeneous matters which 
the kidneys separate from the system "would 
erode the interior surfaces of the ureters and 
bladder, but that these are provided with a vil- 
lous coat or lining, and plentifully supplied with 
a secretion or sheathing mucus to obviate such 
an evil. When secreted, and most commonly 
w r hen first voided, the urine has a distinctly acid 
reaction in man, and in all carnivorous animals. 
On the contrary, in most herbivorous animals the 
urine is alkaline and turbid; the difference de- 
pending not on any peculiarity in the mode of 
secretion, but on the differences in the food on 
which the two classes subsist. Human urine is 
not usually rendered alkaline by vegetable diet, 
but becomes so after the use of alkaline medi- 
cines. The "whole quantity of urine secreted in 
twenty-four hours depends greatly on the amount 
of fluid drunk, and the proportion secreted by 
the skin. The latter being more active in sum- 
mer than in winter, it may be estimated that in 
summer a healthy man voids thirty ounces daily, 
and in winter about forty ounces, thus giving a 
mean average of thirty-five ounces of urinary 
secretion per diem. 
2* 



18 THE SCIENCE OF LIFE. 

In entering upon the physiology of the Gen- 
erative system, we shall first take the Glands of 
the Testicle, as they stand in the same relation 
with the secretion of the semen, or seed, as the 
kidneys do with the secretion of urine; both, in 
fact, being the organs in which these important 
fluids are secreted or prepared. The sexual 
functions commence at puberty, and are per- 
formed, if the individual be in health, until the 
arrival of senescence. The function is dormant 
in infancy or childhood, and ceases in old age. 
The secretion of the • seminal fluid takes place 
constantly (though slowly, except under excite- 
ment), in the tubuli semeniferi of the testicles. 
Thence it passes along the vasa deferentia into 
the vesiculce seminal es, where it collects and is 
discharged, passing through the prostate gland 
by ducts into the urethra, whence it is expelled 
by emission. 

To the vesiculce seminales or seed-Madders a 
double function may be assigned, for they secrete 
some fluid to be added to that of the testicles, 
and serve also as reservoirs for the seminal fluid. 
The former is their most constant, and probably 
most important office, for in the horse, bear, pig, 
and several other animals in whom the vesicula3 



THE SCIENCE OF LIFE. 19 

seminales are large, they do not in any way com- 
municate with the vasa deferentia, but pour their 
secretions separately into the urethra. It is 
highly probable, however, that the secretion of 
the vesiculas (the action of which is unknown) 
contributes to the proper composition of the 
impregnatory fluid. There also exists some 
mystery respecting the secretions of the prostate 
gland, their nature and purposes ; it is supposed 
they contribute only a subordinate part in the 
composition of the impregnating semen; for 
when the testicles are lost, or their secretions 
destroyed, though these organs are perfect, all 
procreative power ceases. 

Tlie Semen is a thick whitish fluid, which 
consists of a liquor seminis and of certain solid 
particles; is colorless, transparent, and of an 
albuminous nature. In contains, floating in it, 
various cells, oil-like globules, minute granular 
matter, and two principal microscopic constitu- 
ents, named spermatozoa {spermatic filaments), 
and seminal granules. The spermatozoa are pe- 
culiar living bodies existing in considerable num- 
bers in healthy semen, and in the urine of those 
whose generative systems have become debili- 
tated; and when examined in the field of the 



20 THE SCIENCE OF LIFE. 

microscope, seem to be endowed with the power 
of executing a brisk lashing movement. Each 
consists of a flattened oval part or body, and of 
a long filiform tail ; the body is about one six- 
thousandth part of an inch in width, the entire 
body and tail being about one four-hundredth 
to one five-hundredth part of an inch in length. 
The seminal granules are rounded colorless 
bodies, averaging about one four-thousandth part 
of an inch in diameter, and are allied to mucous 
corpuscles. The seminal fluid, secreted by the 
testicles, is one of those secretions in which a 
process of development is continued after its 
formation by the secretory cells and its discharge 
from them into the tubes. The complete devel- 
opment of the spermatozoa, in their full propor- 
tion and number, is not achieved until the semen 
has reached, and for some time lain in, the sem- 
inal bladders (vesiculm). These spermatozoa 
present no trace of structure or dissimilar 
organs : they move about in the seminal fluid, 
lashing their tails and propelling their heads 
forward, in various lines. Their rate of motion 
is about one inch in thirteen minutes. Of the 
physiology of these seminal filaments little that 
is certain can be said ; their presence in the im- 



THE SCIENCE OF LIFE. 21 

pregnating fluid of nearly all classes of animals 
proves their essentiality to the process of impreg- 
nation. They have been regarded as highly 
organized, and as the materials or organs out of 
which the new individual is begun ; but whether 
their contact with the ovum in the female be 
essential to its impregnation cannot be deter- 
mined; it probably is so, though the statements 
respecting the insertion of part of the seminal 
filaments into the cavity of the ovum have not 
been confirmed. Nothing has shown what it is, 
that makes the fluid capable of impregnation, 
and of giving to the developing offspring all the 
characters, in features, size, mental disposition, 
and liability to disease, which belong to the father. 
This is a fact wholly inexplicable. By many 
these microscopical researches, relative to the 
living bodies seen in the seminal fluid, have led 
to a belief in the theory, that the offspring is the 
progeny of the father only; but whether this be 
the case, or whether the offspring be the product 
of the mother alone, or of both, has never been 
determined. I must confess I am inclined to 
believe in the first-named supposition. 



22 THE SCIENCE OF LIFE. 



CHAPTEE II. 

ONANISM AND ITS DESTRUCTIVE CONSEQUENCES. 

Onanism is that unnatural practice by which 
persons of either sex may defile their own bodies 
without the assistance of others — whilst yielding 
to filthy imaginations they endeavor to imitate 
and procure to themselves that sensation which 
God has ordained to attend the carnal commerce 
of the two sexes for the continuance of our 
species. This destructive habit, as the most 
frequent case of impotency and sterility or bar- 
renness, is usually denominated Onanism. It 
were well if the evil pertained only to youth, 
but it must be owned that such is the force of 
this depraved and demoralizing habit, that it is 
frequently found to be indulged, at an age when 
usually the sober and mature judgment may be 
expected to be in vigorous activity. This de- 
structive and pernicious vice is alluded to in 
the 38th chapter, 10th verse, of Genesis, as the 
sin of Onan (whence its name) : and the revolt- 
ing record is placed there, doubtlessly, for our 
warning and as an indication of the abhorrence 



THE SCIEXCE OF LIFE. 23 

of that pure and holy Being for his unnatural 
sin. 

The spell-bound fascination of this unfortu- 
nate delusion most commonly assumes its sway 
at a very early period ; the secret is frequently 
propagated in whisper, or by example from boy 
to boy at school, where children are left, in a . 
measure, open to the admission of sights and 
sounds over which the preceptor can only ex- 
ercise a limited control. There, left to intermix 
with other lads more precocious than themselves 
or exposed to the numerous snares and tempta- 
tions presented on every side in all large cities, 
it requires a more than ordinary amount of 
watchfulness on the part of those parents and 
guardians who have the supervision of youth, 
to prevent the introduction, or to eradicate and 
avert the consequences of this distressful and 
abominable practice. Under such circumstances, 
the secret of illusory gratification is soon dis- 
covered, a new source of vivid and exquisite 
sensual enjoyment is opened to the ardent im- 
agination; it is felt to be easily and secretly 
practical, and intensely pleasurable. Upon 
youth, this destructive habit commits the most 
unrestricted ravages; and it will be obvious, 



24 THE SCIENCE OF LIFE. 

that, inasmuch as it strikes at the very root of 
society, at the increase and propagation of the 
human race, by enervating and debilitating the 
springs of life, no language can be sufficiently 
strong in reprobation of the national, social, and 
individual miseries resulting from a practice 
which is not more hurtful and odious among 
men, than it is destestable in the sight of God. 
It is at that early period when passion predom- 
inates, unchecked by the immature reasoning 
faculty, that the heedless youth runs the greatest 
risk of contamination. 

It will be well to place before the reader, in 
as brief a form as is consistent with a literal 
outline of the facts, a summary of the conse- 
quences, physical as well as mental, resulting 
from the practice of self-pollution. 

And these are twofold, for such is the myste- 
rious nature of the union, such the relation and 
mutual dependence existing between mind and 
body, between the purely corporeal and the 
mental portions of our being, that any physically 
bad habit, while it undermines the bodily health, 
produces a corresponding depression upon the 
animal spirits; the brain and nervous system, 
as the organs of the intellectual principle become 



THE SCIENCE OF LIFE* ■ 25 

preternaturally weakened and diseased, until one 
common ruin involves both alike in destruc- 
tion. If self-pollution has unhappily gained the 
mastery over the young spirit, if it become an 
admitted habit, the energies of the body, which 
ought naturally to be directed to the purposes 
of nourishment and growth, are employed in 
the reparation of a criminal loss, and the pur- 
poses of natural sustenance, as well as the 
support of the bodily functions, are altogether' 
superseded, or at ieast imperfectly provided for. 
An idea mav be formed of the nature of this 
loss, and of the sacred guard which health im- 
poses upon its due preservation, by observing 
the consequences resulting from its unnecessary 
and too frequent emission. Physicians of all 
ages have unanimously been«of opinion, that the 
loss of an ounce of this humor by the unnatural 
act of self-pollution, would weaken more than 
that of forty ounces of blood. An idea may be 
formed of its importance, not merely for the 
direct end it was designed to fulfill in the pro- 
cess of generation, but for other purposes, more 
evident when retained, than its expulsion;, note, 
for instance, the changes which take place in 
the animal economv as soon as this vaulable 
3 



26 THE SCIENCE OF LIFE. 

fluid begins to be secreted; the voice and 
features change, the beard grows, the genitals 
become covered with hair, the whole body 
assumes a more round and manly appearance — 
the muscular system acquiring that firmness and 
solidity which chiefly marks the distinction be- 
tween man and Woman. 

Sensibly alive to the absolute impossibility 
of mixing in the ordinary enjoyments of civil- 
ized life, and of deriving from sexual congress 
any of those thrilling delights, which for the 
wisest of purposes the God of nature has in- 
separably appended to that act, he becomes a 
low, melancholy, dispirited, dejected being ; there 
passes over his mind a change which induces 
him to avoid all rational intercourse with his 
species. He bids a gloomy farewell to the cheer- 
ful society and haunts of men, the busy turmoil 
of trade, politics, the thousand anxieties of com- 
mercial ambition appear to his indolent imagi- 
nation, as either too great for his hopes, or 
foreign to his desires. Imbued with a moody 
misanthropy, the natural result of his own 
vices, he vents his splenetic complaints against 
the world at large, or, if he speak, it is to de- 
claim respecting the darker side of human feeling 



THE SCIENCE OF LIFE. 27 

and character. Thus ne becomes a secluded, 
isolated being, his mind vegetating on his own 
prurient and diseased fancies. -Once, perhaps, 
there was the budding promise of future useful- 
ness and activity; now — how fearfully changed 
— -the dupe of a lust alike horrible in imagina- 
tion as well as in act. The blossom of youth — 
perhaps, the flower of manhood, the supremacy 
of mind all gone, degraded, obliterated. Some 
continue the practice from feelings of despair. 
They have become conscious of its ruinous ten- 
dency, and very desirous, in consequence, to 
resist the unmanly habit; but, to their deep 
dismay, have found their powers so strangely 
and unexpectedly weak, that only an imperfect 
erection could be commanded, leaving them 
burning with baffled desire, yet powerless. Or, 
perhaps, the seminal fluid, thin, poor, and scanty, 
escapes too readily; and so, ashamed, vexed, dis- 
pirited, they forego any future attempts, lest 
they should again be subjected to the humilia- 
tion of failing in that act, the energetic per- 
formance of w^hich is the conscious pride of all 
who stand erect in the dignity of man. Abashed, 
the poor guilty sufferer retreats from the quick 
gaze of his fellow mortals ; he sees, or fancies 



28 THE SCIENCE OF LIFE. 

he perceives, suspicion in the eye of every one 
who looks steadfastly upon him. His haggard 
countenance — his pale, unmeaning, inexpressive 
face — his dull, lack-lustre eye — his thin and 
tremulous form, may well betray him — as most 
assuredly they do, to the practiced observer. 

See then, in this, a striking fulfilment of the 
prophetic warning, " There is nothing done in 
secret that shall not be revealed," neither " hid" 
even from the recognition of mortals, that shall 
not ultimately be made, even to them, evident 
as the noon-day. Self-pollution entails upon 
its victims marks as legible to the eye that can 
understand them, as the scars of small-pox. 

As to the effects of this vicious practice upon 
the body, they are not less remarkable than the 
strange debility which clouds the mind. Let 
once this forbidden and surreptitious form of 
delusive enjoyment gain the force of habit, and 
instantly down falls the barrier of intellectual 
control. And, be it observed, there is no act 
which so soon becomes habitual. But as to the 
act of self-pollution, its first essay is ushered 
in with a new, wild and intoxicating delight. 
Its very secrecy aids the infatuation. The stream 
once crossed— the Eubicon once passed — all may 



THE SCIENCE OF LIFE. 29 

be done effectually that is evil, for time and 
eternity. To retrace that step, to efface it as a 
blot from memory and conscience, is impossible > 
and so often that monitor within becomes seared, 
deadened, hardened, till its feeble voice, from 
oft-repeated criminality, becomes drowned in 
the mad and urgently loud calls of unnatural 
passion ; and thus it is that the mind, now de- 
praved, becomes, not the reasoning governor, 
but the goad, the stimulant to acts which, 
sooner or later, will abolish and destroy com- 
pletely every vestige of intellect or rationality. 
As the nervous system suffers, the brain be- 
comes the subject of disease and melancholy 
indifference ; and disgust and misanthropy, pass 
through! their various grades into madxess. 
The startling truth is not to be concealed — that 
self-pollution is frequently the sole cause of 
ixsainity. If the happy married man indulges 
to excess in the legitimate gratifications of the 
matrimonial couch, affections of the head are 
frequently observed — dizziness, an unaccounta- 
ble uneasiness, want of sleep, or perhaps drowsi- 
ness. Dr. Armstrong was accustomed to teach 
the pupils of the Borough Schools, "That the 
solitary vice of Onanism produces affections 
3* 



x 



30 THE SCIENCE OF LIFE. 

of the head ; " and he details, in his published 
lectures, the case of a youth "17 or 18 
years of age, who went at the • age of ten, to 
a school where this vice was very common, and 
he became the subject of it, and from being a 
fine, active and clever boy, he became a perfect 
idiot. His eyes became prominent, his pupils 
dilated — he had pains in his head and down the 
course of the spine — loss of memory— a silly 
unmeaning expression of countenance, and a 
tottering gait/' He declares his conviction, no 
doubt founded on repeated observation : " 1 think 
I should know a person in the street who has 
addicted himself to this vice, by merely loalking 
behind him 9 from his peculiar gait" Is this 
wonderful ? Nay, it is merely illustrative of the 
value and power of close observation; and it 
may serve usefully to alarm some poor infatuated 
youth, who may foolishly imagine his secret 
pollutions are known only in the recesses of his 
own conscience. And that these oft-repeated 
acts should really tend to insanity, if we had 
not the evidence of the fact, it would not be 
unphilosophical to suppose, for the mind, con- 
tinuously and morbidly directed to this one sin- 
gle idea, and the act connected with it, becomes 



THE SCIENCE OF LIFE. 31 

debilitated, from the preponderance and perpet- 
ual recurrence of the same unchanging train of 
thought and feeling ; and such is the sympathy 
of the generative organs to the act which im- 
presses them, that the physical and moral sen- 
sibilities are there directed as to one common 
focus, and that which ought to be only a casual 
state of excitement, again to subside into repose, 
becomes exchanged for a permanent, and there- 
fore morbidly irritable condition. 

How fallen from his high and proud estate — 
how sunk beneath the true nobility of man — is 
the wretched wreck of humanity, whose de- 
plorable excesses have reduced him to a condition 
so truly contemptible. Once, in the joyous 
hilarity of youth, he rejoiced in the entire com- 
mand of every manly faculty ; now, a senseless, 
yet animated mass of helplessness, exciting the 
commiseration of those who know not the cause 
of his ruin, and visited with the bitter scorn of 
those, who, spite of his attempts at concealment, 
read his degradation enstamped upon every fea- 
ture. 

Every man or woman has his or her weak 
point, not merely in mental but in bodily or- 
ganization ; but many persons from accidental 



32 THE SCIENCE OF LIFE. 

causes (of which this form of vice must surely 
be enumerated as one), call into active energy 
the seeds of disease, which would otherwise 
have lain dormant ; and, as the result of this, 
the earlv marks 'of some disease of the chest are 
to be noticed in the following order : — breath- 
lessness on the slightest exertion, irregular sleep, 
the sufferer, finding it excessively difficult to 
fall asleep at night, is heavy with greedy sleep 
at the hour when duty bids him rise ; together 
with these symptoms, there is languor, lassitude, 
and other signs of debility ; fever is then per- 
ceptible, but chiefly in the evening. There is a 
loss of appetite — the stomach becomes capricious 
— and, as the" scanty food becomes less perfectly 
subjected to the digestive process, there results 
a manifest wasting of the muscular system. 
Paleness of the countenance; a tumid belly, 
with a distended condition of the legs; an irreg- 
ular and costive state of the bowels, with frequent 
changes in the character and appearance of 
their discharges: these are the premonitory 
symptoms which usher in the first stage of con- 
sumptive disease, arising from debauchery. 

Epileptic and convulsive diseases are 
freely produced, excited, and called into action 



THE SCIENCE OF LIFE. 33 

by these excesses. The natural intercourse of 
the sexes is bounded by natural capability, but 
this by none, hence there is excitement without 
power ; and, as every organ that is carried above 
its proper pitch must necessarily rebound and 
sink, there must be a corresponding state of de- 
pression : we may easily conceive how this vicis- 
situde, this repeated change and alteration, will 
derange the tranquillity of the nervous system, 
and speedily induce, especially sensitive, irritable 
habits, hvsterical and convulsive disorders of 
the worst kind. It is not unfrequent that Apo- 
plexy should occur from this engorged and ir- 
regular condition of the blood vessels of the 
head, whether arising from Onanism or mere 
venereal excess ; the latter paroxysm terminates 
itself, the former, on the contrary, may be goaded 
on to unnatural passion and madness; and if 
the vessels of the brain are not ruptured, it is, 
that the most dreadful and exhausting debility 
remains behind. 

If we consider ever so slightly the necessary 
results of these two causes, namely, the evacua- 
tion of the seminal fluid, and the convulsive 
action of the whole bod}' — the orgasm or thrill 
this sudden loss is naturally calculated to excite, 



34: THE SCIENCE OF LIFE. 

— it will not be difficult to account for most of 
the disorders which arise in the human body, 
from this artificial and unusual condition being 
too frequently repeated. Weakness of the brain, 
with all its results — as insanity, idiocy, moping 
melancholy, or that abstraction which unfits a 
man for the sober realities of active life, de- 
privation of the digestive organs, whether it 
evince itself merely as a slow form of indigestion, 
or that silently consuming inflammatory mis- 
chief frequently terminating in cancerous dis- 
organization — all these frequently may and do 
result from excessive loss and unnatural dis- 
charges of the male semen. 

That the habit of masturbation is far more 
deadly and destructive than moderate enjoyment 
with women is evident, from the fact that the 
latter has its limits of capability, whereas the 
former has none. A well-known medical writer 
adopts the axiom that " moderate indulgence in 
the natural way is useful where the wants of 
the system imperatively demand it ; but where 
solicited by the diseased fancy it weakens all the 
faculties ; the loss of the seminal fluid occurring 
not merely when its excretion is salutary, but 
too frequently for the constitutional powers to 



THE SCIENCE OF LIFE. 35 

bear up against the repeated evacuation. It 
ought to be borne in mind that the loss of the 
semen, even in a natural way, ought ever to bear 
relation rather to the healthful wants than the 
desires of the body. It ought, also, to be con- 
fined within the limits of reparation ; and this 
power of constitutional restoration varies very 
widely in different individuals. 

The eloquent Hoffman has arranged, under 
six distinct heads, the evils which arise from 
self-pollution, and his description accords pre- 
cisely with my experience during a practice of 
twenty years. He observes — 

First — "All the intellectual faculties are 
weakened, loss of memory ensues, the ideas are 
clouded; they have an incessant irksome un- 
easiness, continual anguish, and so keen a re- 
morse of conscience, that they frequently shed 
tears. They are subject to vertigoes ; all their 
senses, but particularly their sight and hearing, 
are weakened ; their sleep, at times, is disturbed 
with frightful' dreams." 

Secondly — " The powers of their bodies decay ; 
the growth of such as abandon themselves to 
these abominable practices, before it is accom- 
plished, is greatly prevented. Some are in a 



36 THE SCIENCE OF LIFE. 

perpetual state of drowsiness. They are affected 
•with hypochondriac, or hysterical complaints, 
and are overcome with accidents that accompany 
those grievous disorders— melancholy, sighing, 
tears, palpitations, suffocations, and faintings. 
Some emit a calcareous saliva; coughs^ slow 
fevers and consumptions, are chastisements 
which others meet with in their own crimes." 

Thirdly — u The most acute pains form another 
object of patients' complaints : some are thus 
affected in their heads, others, in their breasts, 
stomach, and intestines; others, have external 
rheumatic pains ; aching numbness in all parts 
of the body, when they are slightly pressed." 

Fourthly — " Pimples do not only appeal in 
the face (this is one of the most common symp- 
toms), but even suppurating blisters upon the 
nose, the breast,, and the thighs; and painful 
itchings m the same parts. One patient com- 
plained even of fleshy excrescences upon his 
forehead." 

Fifthly — " The organs of generation also par- 
ticipate of that misery, whereof they are the 
2^rimary causes. Many patients are incapable 
of erection; others discharge their seminal 
liquor upon the slightest effort and the most 



THE SCIENCE OF LIFE. 37 

feeble erection, or the efforts they make when 
at stool. Many are affected with a constant 
gonorrhoea, which entirely destroys their powers, 
and the discharge resembles foetid matter or 
mucus. Others are tormented with painful 
priapisms, dysuricB, stranguries, heat of the urine, 
and a difficulty in rendering it, which greatly 
torments many patients. Some have painful 
tumors upon their testicles, penis, bladder, and 
spermatic cord. In a word, either the impracti- 
cability of coition, or any deprivation of the 
genital liquor, renders every one imbecile who 
has for any length of time given way to this 
crime." 

Sixthly — "The functions of the intestines are 
sometimes quite disordered ; and some patients 
complain of stubborn constipations, others of 
haemorrhoids, or of the running of a foetid matter 
from the fundament." 

But one of the most singular effects produced 
by self-pollution is an actual reduction in the 
bulk and thickness of the male organ. It is one 
of the first and most obvious effects of this 
strange habit, and what is worse, its power of 
erection becomes correspondingly destroyed. If 
we reflect upon the difference between mastur- 
4 



38 THE SCIEKCE OF LIFE. 

bation and the natural act, we shall not wonder 
at this. Such an one, if the seed vessels are not 
sufficiently distended with the fluid that excites 
erection, is able, by unnatural friction, to excite 
a momentary supply, he can command the dis- 
charge when nature refuses the necessary firm- 
ness of coition. In this way a host of evils are 
engendered. The testicles are called upon, sud- 
denly and violently, to secrete, and the excretory 
vCanals to discharge, a thin, weak, and unprolific 
semen; and the nerves of the penis are rendered 
susceptible of an agreeable titillation, with the 
naturally inseparable adjunct— firm erection of 
that organ; hence, when the votary of self- 
pollution tries to indulge in intercourse, he can- 
. not assume the requisite solidity to effect pene- 
tration ; the organs have been accustomed, by 
the rude friction and stimulus of his own hand, 
to excrete without erection. 

Shocking state! which places man beneath 
the brute creation, and which more justly en- 
titles him to the contempt than the pity of his 
fellow-creatures. It ought not to be omitted in 
a work of this nature, that there are other phy- 
sical consequences connected with severe suffer- 
. ing, arising from; the ^practice in question. One 



THE SCIENCE OF LIFE. 39 

of the most evil and distressing of these defects, 
which arise from self-pollution, is connected 
with a feeling of intense vexation. We allude 
to the premature escape of the seminal fluid on 
any attempt at sexual intercourse. In these 
cases erection is mostly very imperfect, and, 
before an entrance can be effected, the spasmodic 
and irritable condition of the canal is such as 
to cause the ejection of the semen almost with- 
out gratification, and certainly without affording 
the slightest pleasurable emotion to the object 
of baffled desire. A failure in the accomplish- 
ment of the sexual act may arise from a variety 
of causes, of which this is one, and it is mostly 
traceable to such indulgence in self-pollution, 
as, though not leading to complete impotence, 
has yet so seriously enfeebled the tone of the 
retentive organs, that the slightest impulse causes 
them to discharge their thin and watery contents. 
Schirrhosity of the prostate gland (by which 
the non-medical reader is to understand harden- 
ing, enlargement, and an incipient cancerous 
condition of an important fleshy gland in im- 
mediate connection with the neck of the bladder), 
is a disease with which men advanced in life 
are apt to be afflicted, but particularly those who 



40 THE SCIENCE OF LIFE. 

imprudently produce an excitement of the seminal 
vessels by unnatural means. The frequency of 
the disease may be attributed to the unusual 
degree of irritation which, in the present licen- 
tious state of society, is kept up in the organs of 
generation. The perfect impossibility of origina- 
ting life in strong and robust children, is another 
effect of the undue loss of the spermatic fluid I 
evidently, the surest way in which sound and 
vigorous children may be engendered, is the ac- 
tion of a good constitution, unenfeebled by 
excessive waste of the powers of life. There is 
a nameless atrophy, which either delays the 
procreation of children, or, if begotten, the pin- 
ing mother is usually the suffering one, who has 
to deplore a loss, to which her own early crim- 
inality has been no party. 

Many who have unwarily acquired the habit of 
self-pollution have been convinced, by reading 
this treatise, "of its iniquity and injurious conse- 
quences to health, and have determined to give 
it up, thinking that by so doing they may re- 
cover their pristine health and vigor. In this, 
however, they are deceived. A new and un- 
natural association having been established 
between the organs of generation and the mind, 



THE SCIENCE OF LIFE. 41 

the bad consequences of the practice do not 
cease when the habit is left off. Involuntary 
discharges of semen take place during sleep, 
occasionally occurring as frequently as two or 
three times in the course of one night. The 
effect of these emissions is extremely debilita- 
ting; all the symptoms already described are 
aggravated, and the mind sinks into a state of 
'the deepest dejection. Here there is no time to 
lose ; they should immediately apply for the 
necessary medicines, and the practice being dis- 
continued (certainly a main point in the case,) 
they may confidently anticipate the speedy re- 
novation of their constitution. I therefore 
recommend an early application for advice and 
assistance, which in every case will be given 
with that kind consideration and undeviating 
attention that will give confidence to the timid, 
and restore vigor to the debilitated. 



4* 



42 THE SCIENCE OF LIFis. 

CHAPTEE III. 

MAKKIAGE AND ITS OBLIGATIONS. 

The subject of marriage has occupied the pens 
of hundreds of writers, and been dilated upon in 
nearly all its phases and aspects ; and truly the 
topic is a most extensive one — a topic whose 
ramifications spread through nearly all branches 
of knowledge. The clergyman dilates upon it 
as a religious rite, and in his high calling de- 
scribes some of its obligations and duties. The 
lawyer is frequently called upon to unfold and 
construe old enactments, in which scores of the 
wisest legislators were occupied for hundreds of 
years in framing and bringing up to their present 
condition, relating exclusively to the conjugal 
bond, showing of how much importance the 
marriage union has been deemed. The historian 
tells us of complex old forms and ceremonies 
formerly employed to hedge about the marriage 
state, long since found unnecessary in the ad- 
vances of civilization. The moral philosopher 
and the social reformer describe marriage in its 
bearing upon the well-being of society, show 
how the conjugal bond is implied in the social 



THE SCIENCE OF LIFE. 43 

law, and how society reaps the greater advan- 
tages from its purity and respect. The psycholo- 
gist — with scarcely less advantage to society — 
inquires into the mental difference between the 
sexes, and endeavors to show that the one is 
essential to the happiness of the other. 

In proper states of society the laws have always 
given encouragement to marriage. The censors 
in ancient Rome paid particular attention to 
this object, and by subjecting the single to pen- 
alties and ridicule, made them anxious to change 
their condition. Caesar gave rewards to those 
who had many children, and prohibited women 
under forty-five years of age from wearing jewels 
who were unmarried and had no children. 

In all ages of life the most agreeable compan- 
ion that a man can have is a kind and loving 
wife, one who will share his pleasures and his 
pains, who is always rejoiced to hear of his pros- 
perity; but who clings to him all the more 
closely should adversity cast its sable shade over 
his prospects. A woman who is indeed a part- 
ner in the strict sense of the word — a true help- 
mate, a partaker of his joys and his sorrows — is 
the greatest blessing which heaven has bestowed 
upon poor, disconsolate, lonely man. 



44 THE SCIENCE OF LIFE. 

To persons properly constituted, mentally 
and bodily, there can be no greater happiness 
than that derived from the mutual intercourse, 
the mutual love and endearments of an affec- 
tionate couple bound to each other in the lawful 
bonds of matrimony. " The Cynthia of the 
minute " has no charms comparable to the con- 
nubial delight of a fond indulgent pair. The 
frail one has nothing to bestow but the vehicle 
of sensuality, the possession of which "filthy 
lucre " can obtain at any time. Her charms are 
common property ; her blandishments are unreal ; 
her smile a hollow mockery of affection. The 
caresses she bestows on the ardent youth are 
transferred to tottering imbecility and age; 
while the young wife, "lovely as she is good, 
and good as fair," has in the plenitude of her 
power surrendered herself into the embraces 
of her "one true husband." Marriage, however, 
is not altogether made up of " sighs and wreathed 
smiles." Though it has its devotions, it has 
also its obligations; and the divine command, 
"increase and multiply," can only be obeyed by 
those in the full possession of mental and bodily 
vigor ; by those who have preserved the golden 
stream until the time of its flood ; who have not 



THE SCIENCE OF LIFE. 45 

plucked the fruit until the day of its juicy ripe- 
ness. To such happy creatures the nuptial bed 
is indeed redolent of entrancing joys. The cares 
of life are swallowed up in the ample provision 
that bountiful nature has made for her devoted 
servants. 

It is therefore obvious that, before entering 
into the state of matrimony, it is incumbent upon 
every one to consider seriously whether he may 
not be one of those who may be risking his own 
life-long happiness, defeating his own expecta- 
tions, involving in irremediable misery his in- 
tended partner, and endangering the health and 
well-being of possible offspring. 

It is true that many may and do err from 
ignorance ; they may be honest, temperate, and 
virtuous, and contract the obligation in a con- 
fident belief of the integrity and efficiency of 
their virile power, finding but too late that they 
had committed a fearful and (if they do not 
suspect the cause and seek a remedy) irrepara- 
ble error. 

One of the most numerous of the classes of 
patients who consult me, is that wherein the 
patients, unsuspective of their disability, have 
contracted matrimony, and have afterwards 



46 THE SCIENCE 0E LIFE. 

found that they could neither enjoy the pleas- 
ures of the nuptial couch, nor secure the fructi- 
fication which is its greatest glory; but both 
husband and wife never for an instant suspected 
that he or she was the party in whom the defect 
existed; — and often has an after life of hap- 
piness been f secured to those who have been 
bold enough to emancipate themselves from the 
thraldom of a false delicacy, and detailed to me 
in sacred trust all those important particulars 
which clear up the mystery, and enable me to 
remove its cause. 

In concluding this part of my subject, I 
earnestly advise all who contemplate entering the 
marriage state to take advice from a thoroughly 
qualified practitioner, as to whether there is 
anything to be set .right before the marriage is 
consummated. Much misery, perchance in- 
nocent lives, may be spared by attending to this 
obvious and easy duty. Sometimes an old vene- 
real contamination may be lingering in the 
blood. Careful examination and analysis will 
decide ; and treatment for two or three weeks 
may prevent long years of unhappiness. 



THE SCIENCE OF LIFE. 47 

CHAPTER IV. 

SPERMATORRHOEA. 

I think it right to state in the first place, that 
the term " Spermatorrhoea " (a Greek derivative) 
indicates an excessive and unnatural loss of the 
seminal fluid. 

In proceeding to consider the sy7nptomatic in- 
dications of the presence of Spermatorrhoea, it 
is necessary to observe, that as the disease, in its 
progress, assumes a variety of aspects, and in- 
creases in intensity at every step, and as in the 
earlier stages, the symptoms are sometimes 
(though not always) absolutely imperceptible 
to unprofessional persons, it will not be possible 
to exhibit a description, however careful and 
minute, which can enable men to discover, by 
self-examination, ivhether they really are patients 
or not. In some cases, it is true, the fact of 
present illness forces itself upon the most stolid 
and passive dispositions; but in others, — and 
these very often the most dangerous— the disorder 
steals on the sufferer, instead of smiting him 
so suddenly as to warn him that things are not 
as they ought to be with him. In the midst of 



48 THE SCIENCE OF LIFE. 

apparent security, the enemy may be at the gate, 
nay, inside the gate of the citadel of health. 
The only sure mode of ascertaining whether or 
not he be near, is skillful medical diagnosis. 
In order, however, that the people of all con- 
ditions may know as much as possible, relative 
to circumstances which may exercise so impor- 
tant an influence upon the happiness or misery 
of their whole life, and upon the endurance of 
life itself, I will here mention plainly some of 
the more overt symptoms, which cannot be mis- 
taken, and also allude to others, detectible by 
scientific investigation alone. 

The symptoms of Spermatorrhoea are divided 
into — Local and Constitutional. 

Of the Local Symptoms, the chief are, dis- 
charges of semen at night, whether attended or 
not by venereal dreams ; and discharges of semen 
during the day, which sometimes take place 
visibly, in profuse emissions, but most frequently 
imperceptibly, whilst emptying the bladder or 
other bowels. The appearance of spermatozoa 
in the urine is, as I have more than once men- 
tioned, an unmistakable token of dangerous 
disease ; but this appearance is wholly unnoticed 
by the patient himself. Another local synrbtorrv, 



THE SCIENCE OF LIFE. 49 

which sometimes becomes distressing, is an in- 
termittent succession of "priapisms " or violent 
erections of the penis, without any pleasurable 
sensation, these erections being often followed 
by great exhaustion and a sense of weariness 
and prostration; accompanying these, there is 
sometimes an almost invisible trickling from — 
or rather, to the sight, mere humidity at the 
extremity of — the penis ; a kind of oozing, like 
unwholesome perspiration, which, in reality, in 
its slow but sure effect, is not less debilitating 
than the perceptible emissions. At the same 
time, there is apt to take place, on the occur- 
rence of a voluptuous thought, or when in the 
society of females, &c„, a thin mucus-like dis- 
charge, sometimes so very small in quantity, 
that the orifice of the penis is not more mois- 
tened than if a single drop of urine had escaped. 
The drop that does escape, hoivever, is the habita- 
tion- of living beings ; it is a particle of the living 
seed, perhaps deteriorated by disease, but the 
gradual loss of which is tantamount to the de- 
struction of the frame. 

The state of the penis and testicles is another 
indication. Though impotence may not as yet 
have supervened, the patient will, by vigilance, 
5 



50 THE SCIENCE OF LIFE. 

be often able to detect a diminution of his usual 
erectile power, or, when in the act of copulation, 
the semen will escape, before a proper degree of 
penetration has been attained. This state of 
things, if not altered, is the invariable forerun- 
ner of impotence. 

Having observed that nocturnal emissions may 
sometimes (though rarely) not be symptoms of 
disease, it will be right to make a remark, by 
which persons who are debarred from seeking 
medical advice, may have, ere too late, some 
criterion by which to judge of their physical 
condition. 

Nocturnal emissions occurring- more 
frequently than once in every fourteen 

NIGHTS, ARE DECIDED SIGNS 6f DEBILITY, AND 
CERTAIN HARBINGERS OF APPROACHING IMPO- 
TENCE. My ample experience warrants the 
conclusion, that the debility is more obviously 
confirmed, and absolute impotence more certainly 
follows, in those instances where emissions occur 
within the above-named period, on wakiny sud- 
denly in the night, at the moment of the discharge. 
In many instances the sleep is not broken, and 
it is comparatively difficult to ascertain, how 
often the evacuation occurs; the consequences 



THE SCIENCE OF LIFE. 51 

of the loss of the seminal fluid are, however, 
sufficiently evident. Occurring more frequently 
than can be fairly ascribable to the distension of 
healthy vessels, the most energetic measures are 
instantly requisite, to avert the identical mischief 
which would arise, if the loss of the seminal 
secretion were solicited and voluntary. Profuse 
and frequent nocturnal emissions may, or may 
not, be connected with the habit of self-pollution, 
and, as the term implies, may occur during the 
hours of darkness, when the powers of the 
body are prostrate in sleep. These morbid dis- 
charges, are most frequently attributable to the 
practice of self-pollution, and, in some cases, to 
venereal excess ; but may arise from disease of 
the testicle, or from an enlarged or schirrhous 
state of the prostate gland. It is likewise cer- 
tain, that lodgments of hardened feculent matter 
in the large intestines, sometimes operate as a 
mechanical irritant, and thus produce diurnal 
as well as nocturnal evacuations of the most 
important fluid of the human body. 

This is probably enough to say for the present 
with respect to Nocturnal Emissions. *The 
Diukxal Discharges — those which occur at 
stool, whilst making water, or, as I have de- 



52 THE SCIENCE OF LIFE. 

scribed, almost continuously in chronic moisture 
and humidity of the organs, are of a more com- 
plicated character; for in numerous instances 
they are undiscovered by the patient — nay, un- 
suspected — until the disorder has assumed a 
formidable attitude. In cases of the latter kind, 
the evil may go on increasing for an indefinite 
period, the sufferer, unacquainted with the laws 
of health and disease, being wholly unconscious 
that he is undergoing a gradual loss and anni- 
hilation of the vital functions — nay, being some- 
times ignorant (so stealthy and treacherous is 
the progress of the enemy) that any seminal loss 
whatever is going on — and remaining in this 
state of lamentable unconsciousness of his con- 
dition, until the dread truth reveals itself, in 
acute and agonizing disease, in prostration of his 
faculties, in some of the formidable symptoms, 
which force him at the eleventh hour, to fly to 
medical aid for that relief, which, by earlier ap- 
plication, might have been much more easily, 
more quickly obtained. Some of the most 
obstinate disorders with which physicians have 
to contend, are those which have gained ground 
during entire ignorance, on the part of the patient, 
of the existence of any unhealthy symptom what* 



THE SCIENCE OF LIFE. 53 

ever. The generative organs, being the most 
delicate and intricate portion of the system, are 
those most subject to unseen and unsuspected 
disarrangement^ exceedingly variant in symp- 
toms and diagnosis; and this circumstance 
should suggest to prudent persons, young and 
old, married and single, who would effectually 
guard themselves against the possibility of im- 
pending ill, leading first to debility, then to 
torturing pain, to not less torturing and humili- 
ating impotence, and ultimately to premature 
death — it should, I say, suggest to all prudent 
persons the wisdom and importance of Self- 
knowledge in these particulars — the duty of 
perfectly ascertaining, from competent and 
legitimate authority, whether their physical con- 
dition be sound and safe. 

So much for some of the more prominent of 
the local symptoms of Spermatorrhoea. The 
general symptoms are literally, Legion. Con- 
nected, indeed, as they are with every part of 
the human organization, it would be difficult to 
mention any one feeling of functional, mental, 
or constitutional uneasiness, which may not be 
referable to this depraved condition of the sys- 
tem. By a curious misclassification, some writers 
5* 



54 THE SCIENCE OF LIFE. 

have accounted impotence as amongst the symp- 
toms, whereas, it ought more properly, to be re- 
ferred to the effects, of the malady. Uneasiness 
in the stomach, accompanied by flatulence, 
giddiness in the head, pain or weakness in the 
eyes (which sometimes cannot endure a strong 
light), indolence, dislike of exertion, nervous- 
ness, dejection ; excessive craving for food, fol- 
lowed by intervals during which every descrip- 
tion of nutriment is loathed ; irregularity of 
the bowels, constipation alternating with diar- 
rhoea ; headache, and pains in the ears ; whim- 
sicality of appetite ; troubled sleep during the 
night, succeeded by days of gloomy apathy ; un- 
easiness in the liver ; fluttering and palpitation 
in the region of the heart ; and great sensitive- 
ness to heat and cold, — are amongst the derange- 
ments which often accompany morbid spermatic 
discharges. It is a curious pathological fact, 
that during the progress of Spermatorrhoea, 
difficulty of breathing, cough and tightness of 
the chest, arising in many constitutions from 
the seminal disorder, have sometimes been actu- 
ally mistaken for pulmonary consumption. The 
cough is often distressing, occasionally dry, oc- 
casionally attended by an expectoration of an 



Th.^ SCIENCE OF LIFE. 55 

offensive kind. I have no doubt that many 
patients have been maltreated for consumption, 
when Spermatorrhoea was the real malady. 
That the latter leads to the former is certain 
enough ; but the stages and connection of the 
respective diseases, have been grossly misunder- 
stood by practitioners who have not had suffi- 
cient personal acquaintance with the indications 
of seminal emission. 

It has been remarked that Spermatorrhoea is, 
in its early stages, frequently attended by an in- 
crease of appetite — a species of voracity accom- 
panied (with apparent inconsistency) by a feeling 
of disgust. Spiced, savoury, and highly seasoned 
food is sought for, and the digestive organs be- 
ing out of order, it is vainly attempted to 
strengthen them by recourse to strong drinks, 
&c. These stimulants only lead to an increase 
in the morbid discharge, consequent continuous 
weakening of the system. The whole digestive 
economy is gradually ruined, notwithstanding 
which, the patient may, perhaps, retain much 
healthfulness and freshness of appearance, and 
even gather flesh. But meanwhile the evil is 
taking root. 

The senses of sight, hearing, taste, and smell ? 



56 THE SCIENCE OF LIFE. 

are all more or less affected. The loss of the 
brilliancy, — of the "honest courage" of the 
eye, is a symptom of Seminal Weakness (es- 
pecially where the disorder has arisen from mal- 
practices), which I have met with so constantly, 
that I may term it an invariable accompaniment. 
The look of the patient reveals his secret to the 
glance of experience, though it may escape the 
empirist and the superficial. " There is always/' 
observes a renowned commentator, " more or less 
dilation of the pupils under these circumstances, 
and this probably conduces to give the eyes their 
singular appearance. To the want of expression, 
is joined a timidity or appearance of shame, 
especially in such as practice masturbation. 
Their eyks never meet those of another with 
confidence. They are turned away hastily, and, 
after wandering about, are at length directed to 
the ground. There is, in this uncertainty of 
the organs of vision, something analogous to 
the trembling of the voice, hesitation of speech, 
stuttering produced by emotion, and instability 
of the lower extremities, habitual agitation of 
the hands, palpitations, &c. — all common symp- 
toms in these cases." Where Spermatorrhoea 
has existed for any length of time, not only 



THE SCIENCE OF LIFE. 57 

the aspect of the eyes, but the haggard, care- 
worn expression of the countenance, arrest 
attention ; the complexion is usually pah, or of 
an unhealthy brown and yellow hue ; * the face 
and nose mostly angular; the voice becomes 
effeminate and shrill; the frame weak and stoop- 
ing, whilst the dragging step and the shambling 
walk, show the presence of some overwhelming 
cause of prostration and debility. It is not, 
however, till the disorder has made considerable 
ravages in the constitution, that the symptoms 
become evident to the uninitiated. 

Peculiarities of this kind must be carefully 
watched ; for it must be remembered that per- 
sons who are afflicted with diurnal emissions are 
very generally unaware even of the existence of 
the infirmity, and everything must depend on 
the physician's keen perception. Nervous and 
sedentary patients are apt to experience occa- 
sional jerks or contractions of the muscles of 
the eye, and sometimes beams and motes pass 
flickeringly across the vision. These affections, 
as the disease advances, become aggravated into 
partial blindness. 

* In some exceptional cases, however, as explained 
in the text, the body continues for a long time plump, 
and the color ruddy and seemingly healthy. 



58 THE SCIENCE OF LIFE. 

But of all the symptoms which bear witness 
to the shattering and destructive influence of 
Spermatorrhoea, the alteration in the mental 
faculties is perhaps the most lamentable, at the 
same time that it is in general too little under- 
stood, not only by the friends and acquaintances 
of the persons afflicted, but by the medical ad- 
viser. This change is usually indicated in the 
early stages by perplexity and confusion of idea ; 
vacillation on ordinary occasions, where any 
simple decision is required ; a certain degree of 
hesitation or incoherency in speaking ; and a 
diminution in the patient's ability to concentrate 
his ideas on any particular topic of study, busi- 
ness, or what not. " Wandering thoughts " rush 
into the mind even at the most inopportune 
times, and these thoughts are not always of a pure 
or innocent description. The temper becomes 
peevish, sour, and irritable upon the slightest 
provocation, or rather upon no provocation at all. 
"When the sufferer is a married man (and I be- 
lieve tens of thousands on tens of thousands of 
married men are unconsciously in, the incipient 
stages), the bitterness of temper consequent on 
a concealed or ukkkown cause is often the 
source of aggravated domestic misery. Charac- 



THE SCIENCE OF LIFE. 59» 

ters previously cheerful, experience frequent at- 
tacks of melancholy and languor; and vague 
fears of some overhanging calamity, which they 
cannot define, but still dread, hasten them to- 
wards that depth of depression in which life 
itself becomes wearisome. Forgetfulness, con- 
fusion of memory, perplexing comminglement 
of dales, names, facts, and numbers, show that 
the sufferer is approaching a predicament of 
mental prostration. 

As the symptomatic evidences of the presence 
of morbid Spermatorrhoea form the special sub- 
ject of this chapter, I will for the present refrain 
from sketching the deadly effects of the disorder. 
Though I have by no means touched upon 
every one of the symptoms, I have, I hope, men- 
tioned enough to apprise readers of ordinary 
intelligence and prudence of the infinite varie- 
ties of circumstance in which it is imperatively 
binding on men, for the sake of their own hap- 
piness and that of all who are dear to them, to 
ascertain whether or not they contain within 
their system either the acquired or inborn seeds 
of an affliction, which, in its ultimate stages, 
has been but too correctly described as the most 
fearful, degrading, and desperate of human dis- 



60 THE SCIENCE OF LIFE. 

eases. I cannot better close this chapter than 
by referring to the words of the celebrated Lal- 
lemand, in reference to the delusion of sponta- 
neous recovery :— ■ 

" Many diseases, when left to themselves, work 
their own cure, provided only they be not exas- 
perated by the imprudence of the patients. This 
is not the case with Spermatorrhoea, — chiefly, 
perhaps, because the effects produced by the dis- 
ease itself are favorable to the increase of invol- 
untary discharges. Tlie natural tendency of this 
disease to become aggravated, as the result of 
its owk effects, frequently leads to a fatal 
termination. The patients, under such circum- 
stances, generally expire in one of the attacks of 
syncope that follow congestion of the brain. 
In this way also such of the insane who have 
fallen into a state of dementia usually expire." 

After alluding to the fact that patients fre- 
quently die from diseases aggravated and inflamed 
by unsuspected Spermatorrhoea, he goes on to 
say, that the other complications usually engross 
the attention of the attendants, Spermatorrhoea 
being not even thought of, whilst it is commit- 
ting its ravages, and reducing the patient to such 
a state of debility that he is unable to withstand 



THE SCIENCE OF LIFE. 61 

other illness. " In such cases, unfortunately," 
concludes M. Lallemand, u Spermatorrhoea is 
generally unsuspected" 

My own observations enable me to confirm 
the melancholy truth of this statement. I have 
cases in my mind's eye, where patients have been 
pronounced cachectic, or as having died of dis- 
eased heart, diseased lungs, &c; and where all 
that I have heard from the relatives of the de- 
ceased parties, leaves me no doubt that the other 
disorders, where they really existed, might have 
been arrested for an indefinite period, had the 
morbid spermatic emission been known either to 
the medical attendant or to the patient, or being 
hioivn, been properly treated. But it is, in fact, 
a new thing in mere routine pathology, to con- 
sider the existence of this disorder at all, though 
it is the most widely extended, the most treach- 
erous, the most destructive and fatal of any. 



62 THE SCIENCE OF LIFE. 

CHAPTEK V. 

TREATMENT OF SPERMATORRHOEA. 

The treatment of spermatorrhoea is like the 
diagnosis, exceedingly difficult, and requires 
also much skill and experience. The disease 
arises, as has been shown, from a variety of 
causes, and each, as a matter of course, will re- 
quire treatment peculiar to itself. Lallemand, 
having observed the benefit that followed the 
application of nitrate of silver, or, as it is com- 
monly called, lunar caustic, to the eye, when its 
vessels were relaxed by disease, inferred that 
the application of the same substance to the 
seminal ducts, when they were relaxed, would 
be productive of equal benefit. He therefore 
invented an instrument for this purpose, called 
the porte caustique; and hence arose one of the 
most brutal modes of treating an affection, with 
which the whole range of medical science can 
furnish us. Even supposing this application of 
caustic to be valuable, which I dispute — and 
admitting the possibility of the operator being 
quite certain when he has reached the ducts, 
and, therefore, knowing when to cauterize, 



THE SCIENCE OF LIFE. 63 

which I deny — still the application of so de- 
structive an agent to such a delicate part as 
the membrane lining the urethra, cannot but 
be productive of the worst results. How many 
hundreds of cases of stricture can be traced to 
this horrible treatment? How many persons 
have had to curse . the day that practitioners 
adopted this French mode of treating sperma- 
torrhoea, or that on which they were foolish 
enough to submit themselves to it ? 

The employment of the solid nitrate of silver 
as a remedy in spermatorrhoea, is not only dan- 
gerous, but it implies a total disregard of the 
true pathology of that disease. 

The objections to the application of the solid 
caustic to the urethra are the intense pain with 
which its use is attended — the risk of retention 
of urine following the application — the well- 
known liability of caustic to occasion severe 
attacks of rigor — the danger of profuse urethral 
hemorrhage, arising on the separation of the 
slough which its application must produce ; and, 
lastly, the danger that the sloughing process 
may involve the membrane of the urinary canal 
to such an extent as to destroy its integrity, and 
thereby expose the patient to all the sufferings 



64 THE SCIENCE OF LIFE. 

and dangers resulting from infiltration of urine, 
fistula, and the like. 

It is allowed by all unprejudiced persons that 
the results of actual experience far outweigh 
the most specious theories, or the boldest asser- 
tions. I therefore select a few cases out of 
many that have come under my notice, in which 
the effects of cauterization of the prostatic and 
other portions of the urethra proved most serious 
and distressing. 

In a case a patient had led a most dissolute 
life, and suffered at various times from repeated 
attacks of gonorrhoea ; the consequence, at last, 
being- that he suffered from obstinate urethral 
and vesicular gleet, and a shattered constitution. 
He applied for surgical aid, when cauterization 
was recommended and applied, the effects of 
which the patient described as terrible in the 
extreme — the scalding on micturition was for 
nearly three days beyond description, the diffi- 
culty being such as almost to amount to retention. 
A purulent discharge ensued, tinged with blood, 
which continued for several days. On recovery 
from the local effects of the caustic, the posterior 
part of the urethra became the seat of a severe 
and fixed pain, always intensified by the escape 



THE SCIENCE OF LIFE. 65 

of urine. Sexual intercourse, attempted on 
several occasions, created so much pain and in- 
convenience that it was abandoned. Nocturnal 
emissions were of frequent occurrence, and also 
discharges from the vesiculse seminales, when- 
ever defalcation took place. In this condition 
he consulted me. On attempting to pass a 
bougie along the anterior part of the urethra, 
much pain was complained of; but when it 
reached the posterior part it was excruciating, 
and the spasms so violent that it had to be with- 
drawn. Two or three days being allowed to 
elapse, and, in the meantime, sedative and effi- 
cient medicine administered, another attempt 
was made with a smaller sized bougie, which 
entered the bladder, but not without much pain 
and difficulty. ■ 

I obviated this, however, by catheterizing the 
urethra; and at the same time successfully 
counteracted other local and general symptoms 
by a suitable course of medicines. 

In the treatment of the disease which forms 
the principal subject of these chapters, the 
utmost degree of uncertainty formerly prevailed ; 
there was a random wildness and contrariety in 
the course adopted by various practitioner?, 
6* 



66 THE SCIENCE OF LIFE. 

which too truly indicated the low ebb of profes- 
sional information on the subject; and this 
uncertainty and ignorance proved the fruitful 
source of calamity. 

A brief explanation will show how this oc- 
curred. The morbid discharges from the urethra, 
which, without the aid afforded by the skillful 
and careful use of the microscope, might be 
mistaken for spermatorrhoea, are of various 
kinds. Amongst them may be accounted the 
slight discharge which sometimes remains after 
gleet ; also that connected with stricture of the 
urethra, and the mucous emission from the 
prostate gland (commonly called the prostatic 
discharge) and from the mucous membrane. 
The remnant of a syphilitic attack is also some- 
times indicated by a discharge, which nothing 
but great care and experience can distinguish 
from spermatorrhoea or escape of the seed. 

Now each of these affections, besides similar 
ones, which I do not think it necessary to 
enumerate, possesses distinct characteristics re- 
quiring a mode of treatment different from the 
others. The misfortune was, then, that there 
being no certain means by which any of the 
others could be distinguished from sperma- 



THE SCIENCE OF LIFE. 67 

torrhoea, the latter disease was not unfrequently 
met by a treatment the very reverse of that 
which was properly applicable to it, and the 
results were, of course, most disastrous. There 
were in short no means of detection — no means 
of positively detecting the presence of sperma- 
torrhoea, as contradistinguished from affections 
similar in appearance, but quite opposite in 
nature. 

Thus, the seminal was sometimes mistaken for 
gleety or syphilitic discharge, and subjected to 
what was called "active treatment." Cubebs, 
copaiba, mercury, and astringent injections were 
administered, the effect of which was to produce 
a high degree of inflammation, and to irritate 
and aggravate the real malady, which, being 
incapable of being detected, was very often not 
even suspected; and so its ravages went on un- 
checked, or, more properly speaking, inflamed 
and stimulated, by the medicaments applied to 
them. 

It would be unjust to impute blame to the 
practitioners of those by-gone times ; in the im- 
possibility of detecting the real disease, they had 
to make choice of the alternative either of strik- 
ing in the dark, or of permitting the disorder, 



68 THE SCIENCE OF LIFE. 

whatever it was, to pursue its deadly career 
without an attempt to restrain it. They chose 
the former alternative. They struck in the 
dark, but too often their blow was fatal to the 
patient instead of to the disease. 

That state of things is happily changed. 
Whilst it is certain that in cases of morbid emis- 
sion from the urethra, a derangement of some 
kind or another will, it may almost be said with- 
out exception, be found in the testicles, it is not 
less so that each description of discharge has a 
characteristic peculiarly of its own, which the 
microscope enables us to identify as different 
from the others. Thus, the presence of Sperma- 
tozoa in the urine or in the dribbling effusion 
affords unmistakable evidence of Spermatorrhoea. 
If, on the other hand, the discharge be connected 
with gleet arising from gonorrhoea, minute globu- 
lar particles characteristic of that affection will 
be discovered by the microscopic test. In like 
manner, when the discharge is syphilitic, the 
linear and almost crystalline formations can be 
discovered, and the class of disorder is thus de- 
fined. When it is considered that fifty years 
back there was no possibility of thus ascertain- 
ing the nature of disease, and that physicians 



THE SCIENCE OF LIFE. 69 

were compelled to act without any assurance 
against the possibility that their utmost exer- 
tions were doing the patient mischief, instead of 
good, and that the more vigorous their endeavors 
to effect a cure, the greater the amount of injury 
which they might be inflicting on his constitu- 
tion, some idea may be formed of the sad state 
of confusion in which this department of thera- 
peutics was involved. 

But the errors of the elder physicians have 
been succeeded in our own times by a mistake 
of another kind, and the effects of which are 
also deplorable. Formerly, the danger was that 
the physician, scarcely aware of the very nature 
of Spermatorrhoea, generally failed to discover 
its existence, and treated it as if it were a disor- 
der of a very different kind. Now, since the 
dangerous importance of Spermatorrhoea has 
been brought to light, it is, by the inexperienced 
and ill-informed members of the profession, de- 
clared to be present upon every appearance of 
unhealthy discharge. From the extreme of neg- 
ligence they have rushed to that of childish 
nervousness respecting Spermatorrhoea. Thus, 
at present, instead of Spermatorrhoea being mis- 
taken for other diseases, other classes of disorder 



70 THE SCIENCE -)E LIFE. 

are frequently mistaken for Spermatorrhoea. 
This happens not unusually in the case of obsti- 
nate gleets, as well as in that of the discharge, 
similar in appearance, which occasionally re- 
mains after syphilis. The maltreatment admin- 
istered causes the affection not only to continue, 
but to become more obstinate, and, apparently, 
even incurable. 

These remarks will serve to indicate some of 
the great benefits which have been conferred on 
humanity by the pitch of perfection to which 
the microscope has been brought, and the power 
which it gives practitioners, really acquainted 
with its uses, to detect, without the possibility of 
mistake, the nature of any existing malady, and 
thus to exhibit the medicines best calculated for 
their removal. I could, in truth, recount hun- 
dreds on hundreds of instances, in which the 
utmost distress of mind, the bitter agony of dis- 
appointed hope, the torturing fear that life was 
a total blight, the feeling of degradation, of 
hopelessness, of despair, have been scattered to 
the winds and replaced by health, spirits, and 
happiness, through the result of one timely, and, 
as it has sometimes occurred, almost accidental 
consultation. Such consultation has led to a 



THE SCIENCE OF LIFE. 71 

minute examination of the urine, or of the little 
discharge from the urethra which had been the 
cause of uneasiness; and the consequence has 
been, the dispersion of unfounded or exaggerated 
fear, and the adoption of the course of treatment 
adapted to the removal of any derangement 
which really existed, and which has often teen 
most easy of cure in the very cases where the fears 
and despondency of the patient had been most 
profound* If, on the other hand, the symptoms 
were serious, the great point was gained, that 
their meaning was now understood, and the 
steps to be taken for cure were satisfactorily 
indicated. Such are the advantages which the 
microscope confers in the all-important task of 
detecting the real nature of disease. 

I am, for my own part, free to admit, that I 
was a considerable time studying and observing 
the operation of the instrument, under every 
variety of circumstance and position, and had 
tested it in every way which my own mind and 
the advice of eminent professional friends, at 
home and abroad, could suggest, before I could 
trust myself to act practically, for pathological 
purposes, upon the results of my experience of 
it. From what I have heard, I am disposed to 



72 THE SCIEKCE OF LIFE. 

think that it is a very great pity that every 
medical man who undertakes to deal with an 
instrument so delicate and complex in itself, so 
liable to be mismanaged or deranged, so infalli- 
ble when skillfully handled, but so apt to deceive 
and mislead if there be the slightest error or 
incapacity on the part of the practitioner, — it is, 
I say, a pity that every medical man who under- 
takes to deal with so critical an instrument, 
does not exercise similar industry and precaution 
with myself. 

Having alluded to the distinctive signs by 
which gonorrhoea and syphilitic discharge may 
be discerned from Spermatorrhoea, I ought to 
observe that there are other signs, besides the 
contents of the respective discharges, through 
which the identity of either may be ascertained. 
Thus, the slight mucus-like discharge in the 
urine usually occurs when it is the effect of 
syphilis or gonorrhoea, along with the first drops 
whilst emptying the bladder; but the discharge 
in Spermatorrhoea occurs with the last drops of 
the urine — sometimes a few seconds after the 
urine has passed, in which case the spermatic 
effusion is apt to be accompanied by a spasmodic 
twinge or contraction caused by the pressure 



THE SCIENCE OF LIFE. 73 

upon the seed vessels. There are, in short, 
various modes of diagnosis. A practiced eye, 
for example, can readily distinguish, by exami- 
nation of the patient's linen, whether the stains 
be produced by spermatic or by ordinary venereal 
affection; and the modern annals of medico-legal 
inquiry present several cases wherein the last- 
named mode of test has decided questions affect- 
ing the liberty of accused persons. 

But the microscope is, after all, the grand and 
auspicious agency by which doubts of every kind 
can at once be determined. So protean and 
capricious are the aspects and attitudes assumuJ 
by seminal disease that it is literally impossible 
to lay down any dogmatic standards of treatment 
which would apply to every case. The symp- 
toms vary, both in intensity and continuity,, 
according to innumerable circumstances depen- 
dent on age, occupation, congenital temperament, 
the kind of climate in which the patient may 
have resided during certain periods of his life; 
likewise according to his general habit of body, 
&c; and so arbitrary are these variations, that 
for the great object of safety, it is essentially 
requisite that each case should be studied in 
itself, and that every one desirous of ascertaining ■ 
7 



74 THE SCIENCE OE LIFE. 

his actual condition should submit himself pa- 
tiently to give candid and explicit answers to 
the inquiries which experience may put to him, 
with respect to any circumstances that could 
affect his health injuriously or otherwise. 

It is to be recollected, that in connection with 
spermatic disorder, there may be such a thing 
.as groundless fear as well as groundless confi- 
dence; if thousands on thousands perish, as they 
^undoubtedly do, through not knowing until too 
late, the nature of the dangerous malady which 
is preying upon their vitals, great numbers en- 
dure much needless torture of mind in conse- 
quence of the fear that deadly disease is present, 
when the affection is of a comparatively trifling 
kind, easily removable the moment it is under- 
stood. 

.The most absurd of all emotions is that of 

despair. Let the sufferer remember that there 

is scarcely any degree of weakness or functional 

derangement to which the timely aid of science 

tcannot apply & cure. 



THE SCIENCE OF LIFE. ?3 



CHAPTER VI. 

OST ERUPTIONS OF THE SKIN. 

Dr. Jacques has invited the attenion of the 
public and of the profession to his important 
discoveries in the treatment of skin diseases* 
and, although he cannot complain that his views 
have been neglected, still the subject is one of 
so great importance as to require no apology for 
enlarging upon it. We all know that for many 
years the remedies generally relied on in these 
cases were arsenic, mercury (corrosive sublimate), 
antimony, and caustic ; that medical men looked 
upon the skin diseases in general (as too many, 
indeed, continue to do) as something to be ham- 
mered at, without much hope of relief, with all 
the most deadly drugs of the pharmacopoeia. 
The almost invariable result was, and is, that 
even if the disease is cured, which is exceedingly 
doubtful, the constitution is ruined for the re- 
mainder of the life. Let any man take up a 
medical work on skin diseases and he will find, 
even now, that arsenic is looked on as the sheet 



76 THE SCIENCE OF LIFE. 

anchor, and that hundreds of cases are reported 
in which arsenic succeeded in curing after all 
other treatment had failed. Now, I have care- 
fully, and fo.r years, watched the results pro- 
duced by this plan of treatment. I have always 
found it injurious. In many cases, after a time, 
there is a return of disease worse than before, 
and almost invariably, cure or no cure, I have 
found serious organic mischief affecting the heart 
or the lungSc I am here simply stating results — 
results which I have met with daily in a most 
extensive practice. It is scarcely worth while 
to enter into causes ; for it is quite in accordance 
with' common sense that we should expect dead- 
ly poisons to produce deadly results. "Why these 
particular organs should be so affected is cer- 
tainly of interest to medical men. Few diseases 
have been more minutely classified and described 
than the various forms of skin diseases, and it 
would be easy to enumerate fifty or sixty Latin 
and Greek names which have been applied to 
them; but I fear that the information would 
not be interesting to the general reader. For 
myself, I am in the habit of applying one gen- 
eral principle of treatment in all the varied 
forms which I see daily. My principle is simple 



THE SCIENCE OF LIFE. 77 

enough and general enough to take rank as a 
great discovery. It is a principle I have acted 
upon m practice and have advocated in public 
for years, and certainly my success has been most 
extraordinary. I will explain it in a few words. 
Let aloxe the Skin" Disease — Purify the 
Blood. 

Instead of classifying skin diseases under ten, 
twenty, fifty, or a hundred heads, I find, as a 
general rule, they take rank under three, and 
that treatment must vary according to diag- 
nosis — -still acting on the golden rule, "purify 
the blood." Skin diseases are : — 

1 st. — Hereditary. 

2d. — Of syphilitic origin. 

3d. — Accidental, occasional and anomalous. 

Hereditary Skist Diseases are, undoubted- 
ly, difficult to cure. The impure blood of the 
parent descends to the children. The result is 
an intractable form of disease, and the only hope 
of cure is in steady, persevering treatment. 
Every globule of the blood is vitiated from the 
very cradle ; and if the smallest trace of the im- 
purity is allowed to remain in the system, all 

the labor is in vain, for the patient in a short 

7* 



78 THE SCIENCE OF LIFE. 

time will be as bad as ever again. Hereditary 
skin disease is frequently consumption or scro- 
fula in a rather milder form. There is no doubt 
in my mind of the intimate connection between 
these forms of disease. It is obvious that all 
local remedies must be of necessity ridiculous, 
and even dangerous. In fact, the best dressing, 
where there is great irritation, is a little cold or 
lukewarm water on lint. Above all, avoid greasy 
applications or caustics. In this, as in other 
forms of skin disease, I am frequently consulted 
by those who have taken sarsaparilla for months 
or for years in large quantities, and desire my 
opinion as to the benefit to be derived from its 
use. My experience is that sarsaparilla in itself 
is practically inert in cold or in temperate 
climates. But it is perfectly wholesome and 
harmless ; it is a pleasant drink, and a decidedly 
nice vehicle for the administration of certain 
drugs. On the other hand, in tropical climates, 
or during exceptionally hot weather, sarsaparilla 
exerts a slight action upon the skin which is 
decidedly cooling and beneficial. In all forms 
of skin disease I attach considerable importance 
to the use of the bath ; not that the theory of 
.the water doctors will satisfy — but I am willing 



THE SCIENCE OF LIFE. 79 

to accept truth even from opponents ; and cer- 
tainly their plan approaches more nearly to the 
correct principle than the wholesale administra- 
tion of poisonous minerals. I may add that, 
applying the same remedies, I have been signally 
successful in my treatment of scrofula and con- 
sumption. Skin diseases of syphilitic okigin 
I have named as another great class of disease ; 
and certainly their importance entitles them to 
a rank apart. It is unnecessary in this part of 
the work to allude more particularly to their 
origin. Nor do I intend to include what we 
may more properly class as " Secondary Symp- 
toms." In cases of disease of the true syphilitic 
type there is always danger that secondary 
and tertiary symptoms may ensue, especially 
when the patient is improperly treated and 
salivated by the imprudent administration of 
mercury. But these cases are sufficiently obvi- 
ous, and any mistake in their diagnosis is not 
probable, whatever there may be in their treat- 
ment. I make this observation because it un- 
fortunately happens that in these, as in the 
primary disease, it is far too much the fashion 
to prescribe mercury. But skin diseases of 
syphilitic origin may occur many years after 



80 THE SCIENCE OE LIEE. 

the original disease, and when, in fact, the cause 
is unthought of and forgotten. They are brought 
on "by a taint, yirus poison, or germ, produced 
by the original disease, and which has remained 
dormant in the blood for months or for years. 
I cannot tell you the reason of this extraordinary 
phenomenon : I can only tell you the fact. But 
it is easy to give an illustration of the unex- 
plainable effects produced by animal poisons. 
A man is bitten by a dog, perhaps so slightly as 
just to draw blood. - The wound heals in a day 
or two, and the circumstance is entirely for- 
gotten. But three months, six months, or (cases 
are recorded) even twelve months afterwards, 
he is seized with hydrophobia, and death 
in a day or two is certain. So with syphilis : 
the poison may remain dormant for months or 
for years, and then, breaking out, cause skin 
diseases of the most serious and intractable 
character. It is here important to remark, that 
it does not necessarily follow because a patient 
has suffered previously from syphilis, and is 
afterwards affected by skin disease, that the 
disease is of syphilitic origin. I have been 
consulted by numerous patients, whose lives 
have been rendered miserable by groundless 



THE SCIEKCE OF LIFE. 81 

fears, and have found, on careful examination, 
no trace whatever of syphilitic taint. How is it 
possible to discover? may be asked; and my 
reply is, by one means and by one means only — 
and that is, careful chemical and microscopical 
examinations and analysis of the urine. My 
treatment of skin diseases of syphilitic origin is 
precisely the same in principle as of skin dis- 
eases generally. It is necessary to bear in mind 
that the blood is affected by a specific poison or 
virus, which must be neutralized. .Pukify the 
blood, and the work is done. Accidental, occa- 
sional, anomalous skin diseases are such as arise 
without apparent cause; or may result from 
errors of diet, hard living, exposure to the 
weather. I have frequently seen them as the 
result of bad provisions, impure water, &c, 
during a prolonged voyage. Salt food is injuri- 
ous to some constitutions. To write at length 
on the various forms of disease which may be 
classed under the head anomalous would ex- 
haust far more space than I have at command. 
It is obvious that in their treatment, even mere 
than in other forms of the disease, my dogma is 
the only one consistent with common sense, 
truth and reason ; and, even at the expense of 



82 THE SCIENCE OF LIFE. 

being considered prolix, I must again repeat, 

PURIFY THE BLOOD. 

DR. JACQUES' BLOOD-PURIFYING TREATMENT 

Has now been used by the discoverer for a long 
series of years. Its action is purely upon the 
blood, which it vitalizes, enriches, cleanses, and 
thoroughly purifies. The consequence is, that 
it is an absolute specific in all cases of skin 
disease, no matter from what cause arising. 
That this is. so is proved by the undoubted tes- 
timony of thousands who have used it with 
unfailing effect during the last ten years. To 
prevent any possibility of disappointment, Dr. 
Jacques wishes it to be distinctly understood 
that it is necessary to continue treatment for a 
certain length of time. Skin diseases are in 
their nature intractable and difficult to cure; 
and to promise a rapid and permanent cure with 
a single bottle of medicine would be to bring 
discredit upon it, however valuable. But the 
improvement will be found to be i?mnediatc, and 
no matter how serious or of how long-standing, 
the disease is certain to yield to a proper course 
of the system, which is destined to effect a revo- 
lution in the medical treatment of these cases, 



THE SCIENCE OF LIFE. 83 

and is in truth the most important discovery in 
medical science since the introduction of vacci- 
nation by Dr. Jenner. 

Many persons, who have imagined themselves 
cured of the venereal disease, have had the mis- 
fortune to find the disease break out again six 
or seven years afterwards. A proof of this hap- 
pened in my practice lately. A gentleman was 
affiicted with the complaint, and was cured, as 
ho thought, by the advice and prescriptions of 
an eminent surgeon. He afterwards married; a 
few months after which he caught a severe cold, 
which terminated in a sore throat. He applied 
to a medical man, who prescribed the usual 
remedies, but entirely without success. Having 
been advised to consult me, he called, and 
after a careful investigation, I informed him 
it proceeded from an old venereal complaint. 
It was some time before he would admit this to 
be the fact, and he persevered with the old rem- 
edies nearly a month longer, till at length the 
disease became so serious that he was compelled 
to place himself under my care ; the rapid im- 
provement under my treatment was sufficient 
proof of the truth of my diagnosis. I therefore 
recommend extreme care that the disease be 



84 THE SCIENCE OE LIFE. 

thoroughly eradicated from the blood; for this 
purpose my remedies are very generally em- 
ployed, and will be found most valuable, partic- 
ularly in the after consequences, in removing 
all corruptions, contaminations, and impurities 
from the vital stream, searching out the morbid 
virus, and 'radically expelling it through the shin. 



THE SCIEXCE OF LIFE. 85 

CHAPTER VII. 

SPECIAL DISEASES. 

Venereal intercourse is occasionally impure 
and infectious; and there are some of those poi- 
sons generated and transmitted by sexual con- 
tact, which are of a peculiarly malignant and 
destructive character. In ordinary language, 
one of them produces effects limited to the sur- 
face upon which it falls, others lead out to 
the whole range of syphilitic diseases, and .are 
followed by constitutional derangements of the 
direst description. The first is known as the 
poison of gonorrhoea; the latter as the infec- 
tious agent producing syphilis. The matter 
of gonorrhoea, if applied to the skin, or to 
any secreting surface, produces there local in- 
flammation and a peculiar discharge, mostly 
without breach of surface, while the noxious 
virus occasions an ulcerated, ragged destruc- 
tion of parts, styled in the nomenclature of 
the schools, chancre. Further, the peculiar 
secretion of this sore may be taken up by the 
absorbents of the living system, and conveyed 
into the general mass of the circulating blood ; 
8 



83 THE SCIENCE OF LIFE. 

and, in its passage through the glands of the 
groin (generally the nearest to the spot origin- 
ally infected), these bodies are apt to enlarge, 
inflame, become intensely painful, to suppurate 
and burst, forming the complication known 
by the name of the BtJBO. The original ul- 
ceration may heal, and yet, from the contami- 
nation of the general absorbent system, a train 
of consequences may arise at an indefinite period, 
and to these the name of constitutional 
syphilis is given, as for instance, inflammation 
and ulceration in the throat and skin, with en- 
largement and painful swelling of the bony 
system. For the present I confine myself to 
Gonorrhoea, that most common yet intensely 
painful disorder, which is productive, by its 
frequent repetition, of important changes in the 
physical organization of the sexual system. 

The first symptom of gonorrhoea is generally 
an itching at the orifice of the urethra, some- 
times extending over the whole glands — there is 
a tingling sensation, at first so slight as only to 
provoke more frequent erections. A state of 
erethism or irritation, not as yet amounting to 
inflammation, characterizes the onset of the 
disease. Presently this itching is exchanged 



THE SCIENCE OE LIFE. 87 

for an uneasy sensation, and a great degree of 
fullness and pouting of the lips of the urethra, 
which, if everted, are of a brighter scarlet than 
natural. .Now, as the whole urinary canal se- 
cretes a quantity of mucus, and is endued with 
a high degree of sensibility, an increased secre- 
tion of this fluid takes place from a great variety 
of causes, the course of the urinary canal be- 
comes narrowed, as the thickening and swelling 
of the membrane which forms its lining ; hence, 
partial retention of the urine and a diseased 
change of the parts adjacent. The increase of 
irritation in the surrounding organs is in pro- 
portion to the virulence of the attendant symp- 
toms, and the aptitude of the constitution to 
receive and retain infection, as few can be ignor- 
ant that some persons are more intensely sus- 
ceptible of inflammatory diseases than others. 

In many instances there is a great degree of 
soreness, occurring long before any discharge 
appears, and there is mostly a particular fullness 
in the whole course of the penis, but especially 
of its extremity. The glans, or nut, assumes a 
kind of transparency, chiefly observable near the 
beginning of the urethra, where the skin being 
distended, smooth, and red, this appearance is 



88 THE SCIENCE OF LIFE. 

easily presented. The entrance of the urinary 
passage is often to be found to be excoriated, 
particularly if the glutinous discharge has not 
been carefully washed away, instead of harden- 
ing, as it is apt to do, around the orifice. The 
scalding, which forms the prominent character- 
istic of the disease, occurs at an early period. 
The fear of the patient, while voiding his urine, 
also disposes the urethra to sudden contraction ; 
and the course of the urine is no longer equable 
and steady, but much scattered and broken, as 
it issues with pain and difficulty from the irrita- 
ble and inflamed passage. If the inflammation 
be not very intense — if the constitution be com- 
paratively insusceptible — only a trifling dis- 
charge, with some heat and soreness, may be 
observable, but this is comparatively rare; if 
these circumstances are reversed, many painful 
things are apt to occur, among which, not the 
least remarkable is that incurvated predicament 
of the penis termed chordee. If inflammatory 
excitement runs high, it prevents (should an 
erection unfortunately occur) the extension of 
the urethra to accommodate itself to the altered 
length of the penis, so that should that happen, 
the organ is curved downwards, with great pain. 



THE SCIENCE OF LIFE. 89 

Besides this painful evil, there are other at- 
tendant conditions which, among men of irrita- 
ble constitutions, we are called to witness. One 
is the surgical disease named Phymosis. The 
prepuce, or foreskin, may be considered as a thin 
duplicating containing, naturally, nothing but 
the minutely delicate web of cellular membrane, 
uniting the internal surface with the outer skin. 
But, in consequence of the sympathetic irritation 
of gonorrhoea, there is produced such an amount 
of effused fluid, between the two layers, as to 
cause an unsightly thickening. A chancre, or 
any immediate irritant, may produce, this state of 
parts, but more commonly, it is observed, as su- 
pervening upon gonorrhoea. The inflammation 
attending phymosis often runs high, and so it 
becomes impossible to retract the foreskin, which 
is the seat of it, so as to uncover the glans, then, 
the gonorrhceal discharge is apt to insinuate itself 
beneath, producing painful ulcerations. 

The remedies for this anomalous and unnatu- 
ral condition are purely surgical, and depend 
upon the relief of urgent and immediate pain, 
as well as the removal of the original source of 
irritation. That this is not always the free 
division of the parts with the knife, I hesitate 
8* 



90 THE SCIENCE OP LIFE. 

not to avow, inasmuch as I have known mor- 
tification induced by the rash practice of cutting 
the prepuce, either where the part was in a state 
of acute inflammation, or there were ulcers on 
its inner surface, connected with that disordered 
condition of the system resulting from the abuse 
of mercury. 

Paeaphymosis is that state of parts arising 
from the impossibility of drawing forward the 
foreskin, which has been retracted or drawn 
back, so operating as to effect a tight strangula- 
tion of the neck of the glans. The constriction 
is often so great as seriously to interfere with 
the circulation, and threatening mortification 
and sloughing of the glans. Either of these 
conditions may arise as the result of Gonorrhoea; 
indeed, Phymosis may, by unskillful treatment, 
be made to pass into Paraphymosis. 

Sympathetic Buboes, or inflammatory en- 
largement of the glands in the groin, are apt to 
occur during the progress of gonorrhoea ; there 
is this essential difference between them and the 
buboes which form after chancre — namely, that 
a venereal or syphilitic bubo is almost certain 
to run on to suppuration and burst, whereas a 
gonorrhoeal bubo, being the result of sympathetic 



THE SCIEKCE 0E LIFE. 91 

irritation, very rarely (under proper treatment) 
becomes converted into an abscess. A bubo 
which follows in the train of gonorrhoeal symp- 
toms will not cause much uneasiness, if the 
patient be carefully kept at rest under proper 
treatment. Here the importance of skillful ad- 
vice is very obvious, for it is possible to mistake 
an enlargement which is truly syphilitic, and 
requiring the utmost peculiarity of treatment, 
for one seemingly of a more harmless character. 
Swelled Testicle is one of the most com- 
mon, and, unfortunately, the most painful of the 
consequences of gonorrhoea. This is essentially 
an extension of the inflammation, communicated 
by sympathy, from the urinary canal to the tes- 
ticles, most commonly one of them. If the con- 
stitution be irritable, or if, during the first stage 
of discharge, the patient indulge in his usual 
exercise, or ride upon horseback; if he drinks 
even his accustomed quantity of wine, spirits, ale, 
or porter, this distressing accompaniment to his 
sufferings may almost certainly be expected. 
Sometimes it arises from the improper use of 
strongly purgative medicines of a sal.'ne or 
acrimonious class ; but perhaps the most com- 
mon cause of this production, especially after 



9# THE SCIENCE OF LIFE. 

gonorrhoea has lasted a little time, is the incau- 
tious use of irritating injections for the cure of 
the discharge. 

I must not argue against the use of a thing 
from its abuse; all I can say for certainty is, 
that here I have a proof of the danger and 
impropriety of attempting to do that for our- 
selves which a surgeon would altogether forbid, 
or attempt at another time, in another way, and 
far better. Let the patient think of the ultimate 
results of inflammation and enlargement of the 
testicle. It is not merely present suffering, 
though that may be exquisitely severe ; it is im- 
possible but that the functions of the gland, as 
a secretory organ destined to prepare and secrete 
the semen, cannot but be materially injured by 
destructive inflammation, so that no folly can be 
greater than losing a single moment in applying 
for proper advice under such circumstances. 

Spasmodic and Inflammatory Stricture 
are to be accounted also as among the results of 
gonorrhoea! inflammation. Spasmodic stricture 
may arise from various causes, and attack indi- 
viduals of any age, most commonly the young, 
and those who are of an ardent plethoric tem- 
perament. Inflammatory stricture may be ex- 



THE SCIENCE OF LIFE. 93 

pected also, when, from repeated attacks of gon- 
orrhoea, the lining mucous membrane of the 
urinary canal becomes thickened and diseased, 
especially that portion of it nearest the neck of 
the bladder. In fact, the inflammation of gon- 
orrhoea is the most frequent among its causes, to 
which may be added not alone the misapplication 
of injection for the suppression of the discharge, 
but also the ill-timed employment of bougies 
for the same purpose. It ought to be borne in 
mind that the stoppage of the discharge is not 
the cure of the disease; this may be done with- 
out much difficulty ; but it only serves to drive 
it upon other parts, producing either swelled 
testicle or stricture, and, as a consequence of 
this latter mischief, retention of urine, which 
is prevented from escaping from the bladder. 
Inflammatory stricture consists in the effusicn 
of adhesive lymph underneath the inflamed sur- 
face of the urethra, and, of course, this dimin- 
ishes the capacity of the canal. If the patient 
be placed under proper treatment, the part may, 
on the subsidence of inflammatory excitement, 
again acquire its natural form and dimensions; 
if otherwise, the matter thus poured out becomes 
a solid organized mass, and so the condition 
termed permanent stricture is engendered. 



94 THE SCIENCE OP LIFE. 

Other causes there are of permanent narrow- 
ing of the urinary canal, but gonorrhoeal inflam- 
mation is the most frequent of them all. If 
venereal intercourse be unduly prolonged, or 
attempted, without giving the organs proper 
rest, there is produced such exhaustion of the 
muscular fibres, such irregularity of action as 
to lead to stricture ; so, it will be obvious how 
self-pollution is to be accounted among its causes. 
But now I speak exclusively of 'permanent con- 
striction, as arising from the repeated disorgani- 
zation produced by gonorrhoeal inflammation. 
In the first instance, the patient is surprised to 
find a few drops of urine remaining in the 
urethra, after he fancies he has completely evac- 
uated the bladder ; his linen becomes wetted in- 
voluntarily. The stream of urine is diminished; 
but that does not arrest his attention so early as 
the increased force, amounting to straining, he 
now finds necessary to produce its discharge, 
and the time necessary for that purpose. Some- 
times the stream becomes spiral, and gradually 
very small, until the coats of the bladder, being 
immensely thickened, dilatation of the parts 
behind the stricture takes place, and the ureters, 
bladder, and even the kidneys become involved 
in one undistinguishable mass of disease. 



THE SCIENCE OF LIFE. 95 

All these evils may arise, and frequently do 
originate from any of the forms of sensualism 
indicated in this work, but are generally attri- 
butable to the formation of a stricture or con- 
traction of the urethra from the inflammation 
of gonorrhoea— frequently existing when least 
suspected, iclien it has long heen seemingly cured. 

Gleet is that chronic, semi-transparent dis- 
charge, which often obstinately remains after 
the ordinary symptoms of acute gonorrhoea have 
abated. It is most apt to occur among men of 
naturally unhealthy habits, and when formed, 
requires the nicest tact and management for its 
removal. It does not often occur after the sub- 
sidence of a first attack of gonorrhoea, but if a 
person who lives freely has contracted the 
disease repeatedly, stricture is almost sure to be 
formed or in progress, and a gleety discharge is 
mostly the premonitory warning of its approach. 

The glairy transparent mucous of the urethra 
is increased in quantity — its character is specific^ 
partaking of the nature of the disease which 
has produced it, and therefore, infectious for an 
indefinite length of time. While the slightest 
appearance of even a clear pellucid discharge 
remains, it is unsafe to attempt intercourse, and, 



96 THE SCIENCE OE LIFE. 

therefore, 'a bar is placed against entrance into 
the marriage state, which may, by neglect or 
unskillful treatment, be prolonged for a painful 
length of time. 

Inflammatory Disease and Enlargement 
of the Prostate Gland may be enumerated as 
among the seqnoela of severe gonorrhoea. Its 
effects are of no transient character, impeding 
the action of the bladder, producing an amount 
of pain and suffering that is scarcely for a moment 
absent, disturbing every enjoyment, and inflict- 
ing such misery on the hapless sufferer, which, 
if not cautiously studied with a view to its 
amelioration, frequently runs coeval with every 
remaining year of his ill-fated existence. 

The poison producing syphilis is essentially 
different from that producing gonorrhoea; as 
the former contains a poisonous virus whksh 
destroys the substance of the surfaces on which 
it falls ; hence its effects are more certain and 
more frightfully rapid. 

The virus or animal poison engendering 
syphilis terminates in the destruction of the 
surfaces where it falls, and being absorbed 
into the general" current of the circulating 
blood, ' contamination is diffused throughout 



THE SCIENCE OE LIFE. 97 

the entire extent of the human body. The 
poison producing syphilis is, then, essentially 
different from that producing gonorrhoea ; and 
even among syphilitic diseases it is an axiom, 
established by concurrent observation, that there 
are varieties even in this ; inasmuch as some are 
more frightfully rapid, others more manageable, 
and ending in less severe disorganization of the 
structures that are successfully attacked. The 
matter secreted by the local sores of a female 
laboring under this disease, produce, by direct 
inoculation, similar sores - from impure contact. 
These ulcers or sores, generally single, but oc- 
casionally numerous, and affecting mostly the 
external genitals, have received the denomina- 
tion of Ckakcke, which forms in the male, 
chiefly on the foreskin and glans, or nut of the 
penis, of an irritated and red appearance, grad- 
ually spreading, and, if not arrested, ending 
in the total destruction of the penis* An in- 
definite period of time elapses before these 
ulcerations, after unhealthy coition, make their 
appearance. First an inflamed spot is precepti- 
ble, then a small watery pimple is seen, which, 
discharging its contents, displays a rapidly en- 
larging ulcerated sore. In its centre an ex- 
9 



98 THE SCIENCE OF LIFE. 

cavation is seen, extending beneath the skin, 
excessively painful and sensitive; a blush of 
dark fiery redness is seen around the ulcer, and 
the skin becomes unusually thickened and firm. 
The diseased surface is yellow, its edges are 
hard and ragged, its outline irregular, and there 
is a* feeling of solidity to the touch. The 
thickened base is one of the most obvious pecu- 
liarities of the true syphilitic chancre. As to 
the seat- of these primary sores, they are not 
limited to the genitals alone, but may be found 
on any other part of the body, if that part be 
invested with a mucous membrane, as, for in- 
stance, the lips or nostrils. If a chancre be 
limited to the external surface, its progress is 
slow ; but if its destructive ravages have extended 
deeply beneath the skin, mortification may be 
expected. 

The most remarkable forms of venereal 
chancre that are met with in practice are the 
following : — 

First, that characterized by its circular form, 
its excavated surface, covered by a layer of 
tenacious and adherent matter, and its hard 
cartilaginous base and margin. 

Second, another form of chancre, unaccom- 



THE SCIEXCE OF LIFE. 99 

panied by induration, but with a very high, 
margin, appearing often on the outside of the 
foreskin, and seldom existing alone, called, from 
the preceding description, "the superficial 
chancre witli raised edges." These kinds of 
ulcers are occasionally very serious, neither 
getting better nor worse, but resisting' almost 
every plan of treatment generally adopted by 
the profession for their removal. I have known 
instances where they have existed for several 
months. 

Third, the phagedenic, or malignant chancre, 
a corroding ulcer without granulations, and dis- 
tinguished by its circumference being of a livid 
red color. Cases have occurred where, from in- 
judicious treatment, or the misapplication of 
mercury, the whole of the penis has been re- 
moved by ulceration. 

Fourth, a most formidable kind of chancre, 
denominated the sloughing ulcer. It first appears 
as a black spot, which spreads and becomes de- 
tached, leaving a deepened and unhealthy looking 
surface, which has evidently no disposition to 
heal. This sore is very painful, and encircled 
with a dark purple inflammatory ring. If 
neglected or improperly treated, the process of 



100 THE SCIENCE OF LIFE. 

mortification goes on until all the parts of genera- 
tion are destroyed. 

The venereal poison from any of the above 
mentioned sores is usually taken by absorption 
from the chancre to the glands of the groin, and 
in its course through those bodies, produces 
inflammatory and painful enlargement, mostly 
terminating in a deep and extensive abscess 
bursting the skin; and to this state, either 
previous to suppuration or subsequently, the 
term venereal bubo is correctly applicable. As 
a venereal sore or ulcer may assume from the 
commencement an irritable or malignant ap- 
pearance, rapidly destroying the penis by mortifi- 
cation, so a bubo may assume the same character; 
and in this way serious consequences may be 
endangered, unless timely aid be afforded. 

It appears, then, that the mode in which the 
venereal disease becomes constitutional is by 
the absorption and transmission of a poisonous 
virus, first from the primary ulcer to the groin, 
and thence throughout the whole system of 
blood vessels. In this way, having reached the 
circulating fluid, it affects and contaminates the 
various solid structures of the body in succes- 
sion. First, the lining membrane of the throat 



THE SCIENCE OF LIFE. 101 

and nose; next, the skin or surface of the body; 
and, lastly, the membrane which invests the 
bones, as well as the firm and unyielding struc- 
tures of the bones themselves. When, even 
long after the original cause of the mischief has 
healed, the syphilitic action is set up in the soft 
and delicate membrane that lines the throat ; it 
becomes red and inflamed, a pimple forms upon 
it, which, when it breaks, lays -bare a ragged 
surface, bedewed with whitish matter ; or, if it 
be seated over a bony structure, the exposed 
bone is thrown off, and so, very rapid 
and unnatural communication is established 
between the mouth and nose, that fluids return 
through the nostrils, and the voice becoming 
nasal, proclaims but too surely the character of 
the malady which has produced such disorgani- 
zation. The lining membrane of the nose is 
liable likewise to be similarly affected. The 
progress of disease is frequently such as to dis- 
figure the face most horribly, the cavity of the 
nostrils being exposed from the throat, the 
natural prominence of the face is lost, and, in 
its place, a disgusting ulceration is apparent, 
which can only very imperfectly be concealed. 
Venereal Eruptions are the mildest of those 
9* 



102 THE SCIENCE OF LIFE. 

secondary or constitutional symptoms which 
follow in the train of chancre. Usually they 
assume the appearance of copper colored blotches, 
in irregular and indiscriminate patches, scat- 
tered over the forehead, face, trunk of the body, 
or upper or lower limbs. They are attended 
with no greater pain than uneasiness or itching, 
which is apt to increase towards the latter part 
of the day, or when the patient is warm in bed. 
There is a great variety in the character of 
syphilitic eruptions; indeed many facts serve 
to prove that each form of primary sore has op- 
pended to it a peculiar form of eruption. 

Syphilitic Disease of the Bones usually 
folloAvs the existence of venereal inflammation 
of their investing membrane. The long round 
bones, as those of the legs, are commonly first 
attacked; hence those enlargements of the shins, 
well known as Venereal Nodes, which are, in 
truth, inflammatory enlargement and thickening 
of the periosteum which covers them, subsequent- 
ly passing into actual disorganization of the bone 
itself. Long after a chancre has healed, the 
sufferer complains in the evening of each day of 
increased aching and pain in the legs, or in some 
particular spot upon one of them. There is not 



THE SCIEKCE OF LIFE. 103 

much swelling at the first, or the temporary en- 
largement disappears towards morning*. Exces- 
sive tenderness and pain occur towards nightfall, 
and the sleep is disturbed, fever occurring from 
irritation and want of rest. The fluid secreted 
in consequence of venereal inflammation of the 
bony covering is soon converted into a solid 
enlargement; and next the membrane which 
lines the cavity of the shaft becomes implicated 
— till, from pain, exhaustion, and continued suf- 
fering, existence becomes a wearisome burden. 
Not only do the long bones suffer from syphilitic 
inflammation, but also those of other forms. As 
I have seen, the thin bony plates connected 
with the mouth, throat, and nostrils may exfoli- 
ate, and beyond this, the solid and apparently 
unyielding bones of the skull may also be affected 
with destructive caries, attended with a most 
agonizing headache. These affections of the 
bones are most frequently mistaken for Ehetj- 

MATISM. 

It is right to mention that syphilitic inflam- 
mation of the Iris is to be ranked among the 
most rapid of those inflammatory affections 
which attack the Humak Eye. And I may 

seize the same opportunity of observing, that if 



104 THE SCIENCE OF LIFE. 

the matter secreted in the urethra during the 
progress of gonorrhoea be applied incautiously 
to the eye, with a towel in washing, or by the 
finger, if that retain the slightest atom of dis- 
charge upon it, a most severe inflammatory 
attack may be expected, which in a few days, 
if proper treatment be not actively employed, 
will impair the sight. 

A most important feature in the history of 
syphilitic diseases is the fact of their hereditary 
transmission from parent to offspring. Infants 
may be affected with syphilis in a variety of 
ways. They may be diseased before birth, in 
consequence of the state of one or both of their 
parents. Dr. Burns, Professor of Midwifery in 
the University of Glasgow, whose work "On the 
Diseases of Women and Children " is a standard 
text-book for the profession, says, "infection may 
happen when neither of the parents has at the 
time any venereal sivelling or ulceration, and 
perhaps maky years after a cure has been ap- 
parently effected, I do not," he observes, 
"pretend here to explain the theory of syphilis, 
but content myself with relating well-estab- 
lished facts." Miscarriage or premature labor 
not unfrequently is the indication of this, the off- 



THE SCIENCE OF LIFE. 105 

spring presenting a feeble, emaciating, and 
wrinkled form. The eyes become inflamed ; the 
cry of the infant is feeble and husky; there is a 
low wailing; purulent discharge from the eye- 
lids, and copper-colored blotches upon the 
shrivelled skin that covers the genitals and 
hips ; the nostrils are clogged with, an offensive 
discharge; the nails peel off; and, indeed, many 
children die soon after birth, the true nature of 
their debility being hidden from the eye of the 
attendant practitioner. 

In presenting the foregoing detail of the con- 
sequences of sensual indulgence, and of the 
ailments incident to depraved habits, my design 
has not been to satisfy the curiosity of the idle, 
but, holding the warning mirror up to nature, to 
deter the thoughtless, and, it may be, yet inno- 
cent youth from those evils which are known 
only to some by bitter experience. 



106 THE SCIENCE OF LIFE. 



CHAPTEE VIII. 

SELF DIAGNOSIS; OK, HOW SHALL WE ASCER- 
TAIN UNDER WHAT AFFECTION 
WE ARE SUFFERING? 

In consequence of the frequent inquiries made 
of us — "How shall I know whether I am suffer- 
ing from spermatorrhoea ? What are the symp- 
toms by which I shall be able to recognize it, 
or by which it will be accompanied ?" — I am 
induced to add a few words on this most impor- 
tant point. 

The symptoms are infinitely varied, extremely 
numerous, and differ greatly in different cases, 
both in number, nature, and degree. It will be 
well, perhaps, first to put the most prominent of 
them into a tabular form, and then to introduce 
one or two illustrative cases. 

To render this tabulation more intelligible the 
symptoms are divided into Local, i. <?., affections 
of the generative organs ; Bodily, i. <?., affections 
of the muscular, circulative, nutritive, and re- 
spiratory systems ; and Mental, i. e., affections of 
the nervous system. 



THE SCIENCE OF LIFE. 10? 

In the first place, as being not only most defi- 
nite in character, but also as indicative of the 
disease being more than usually deeply seated 
and confirmed, the local symptoms may be men- 
tioned. They are as follows : — 

Gekekal Symptoms. 

Pollutions* accompanying expulsions of urine. 

Pollutions accompanying defalcation. 

Emissions unaccom; anied by erection. 

Nocturnal pollutions, with or without erection or con- 
sciousness. 

Diurnal pollutions. 

Spermatic urine. 

Contraction of the foreskin. 

Spasmodic or dull pains occasionally in the organs. 

Varicocele, or varicose veins in the testicles. 

Pimples on shoulder and forehead. 

Premature emission during coitus. 

Priapism, or erections apparently without any exciting 
cause. 

Decrease of sexual desire or enjoyment. 

Sanguineous emissions. 

Diminution in size of the penis and other organs. 

Want or imperfection of erectile power. 
Climax — Impotence. 

*The terms "pollutions" and "emissions" refer to involuntary 
escapes of seminal fluid. 



108 THE SCIENCE OE LIFE. 

In reference to general symptoms, it is neces- 
sary to observe that many, if not .all, of these 
symptoms may occur in and denote forms of or- 
dinary disease ; but if produced by spermator- 
rhoea, they will be aggravated in degree, and 
will not yield to treatment known to be eradica- 
tive of them' in ordinary cases. This fact could 
be illustrated in a variety of instances, but one 
may suffice. In an otherwise healthy person an 
attack of indigestion, originating in inattention 
to diet, will yield to gentle purgatives, tonics, 
and other well-known means; but if the symp- 
toms of indigestion exist in consequence of the 
impairment of the nutritive functions by seminal 
losses, the ordinary remedies for such symptoms 
fail to produce their usual effect, as until the 
primary cause of the symptoms be removed, the 
effect will not only continue but increase. In 
like manner disorders in respiration and circu- 
lation may arise indifferently from spermator- 
rhoea, or from other causes; in the latter case 
the remedies usually indicated for such symp- 
toms will remove them, but not so if they be 
caused by spermatorrhoea ; and it may be men- 
tioned that it has been clearly ascertained that 
there is no single function of the animal econo- 



THE SCIENCE OF LIFE. 109 

my but may not become deranged by long-con- 
tinued seminal losses. 

General Symptoms — Bodily. 
Muscular, Respiratory, Circulative and Nutritive System. 

Increased appetite or voracity (in early stages). 

Gnawing, and heat of epigastrium. 

Uneasiness, sinking, or faintness before taking meals, 

followed by disgust or nausea afterwards. 
Want of appetite for plain kinds of food. 
Weight of epigastrium. 
Quickened pulse. 
Flushed face. 
Acid eructations. 

Acrid heat at the upper part of oesophagus. 
Alterations in secretions of liver and pancreas. 
Evolution of flatus. 
Colic. 
Griping. 

Difficulties of breathing, and cough. 
Distension of stomach and intestines. 
Muscular flaccidity. 
Excessive mucous secretions. 
Irregular action of the heart. 
Apoplexy. 

Liquid and unnatural stools. 
Diarrhoea. 

Inflammation of rectum. 
Constipation. 
10 



110 THE SCIENCE OF LIFE, 

Loss of substance. 
Cadaverous appearance of skin. 
Hollow, sunken eyes. 
Extreme sensibility to cold- 
Rheumatism. 
Loss of hair. 
Pulmonary catarrh. 
Indolence, or indisposition to exercise. 
Lassitude. 
Fatigue on slight exertion. 

Climax — Confirmed Debility. 



General Symptoms — Mesttax* 

Nervous System. 

Restlessness. 

Sighing. 

Sensation of congestion. 

Want of energy. 

Uncertainty of tone of voice. 

Nervous asthma. 

Vertigo. 

"Want of purpose. 

Dimness of sight. 

Weakness of hearing. 

Aversion to society. ' 

Blushing. 

Want of confidence. 

Avoidance of conversation. 

Desire for solitude. 



THE SCIENCE OF LIFE. Ill 

Listlessness and inability to fix the attention. 

Cowardice. 

Depression of spirits. 

Giddiness. 

Loss of memory. 

Excitability of temper. 

Moroseness. 

Want of fixity of attention. 

Disposition to ruminate. 

Trembling of the hands. 

Sudden pallor. 

Lachrimosity. 

Tremor from slight cause. 

Pains in the back of the head or the spine* 

Pain over the eyes. 

Disturbed and unrefreshed sleep. 

Strange and lascivious dreams. 

Climax— Hypochondrias. 



NOTES FROM CASE BOOK. 



In proceeding to give a selection of cases which have 
been successfully treated by me, I have to remark that 
in no one instance will a case be inserted unless written 
permission has first been obtained from the patient, nor 
will anything be given which can possibly lead to the 
identification of the writer, my promise of the most 
inviolable secrecy being faithfully kept. It is my prac- 
tice to destroy all letters, as soon as the treatment is 
completed and the correspondence upon it has ceased, 
unless the patient gives me permission to publish his 
case and cure for the encouragement of others, and 
then everything is carefully obliterated which could 
lead to the patient being identified. 

Case 375. 

Sir-: — When you have read my case, will you 
give me your candid opinion as to my fitness or 
otherwise in entering into the marriage state ? I 
confess I have doubts on the subject, and as ah 
honorable man I should not enter into so holy 
an alliance without such medical advice as I 
presume it is in your power to give. I am just 
forty years of age, and have been for twenty-six 



NOTES FROM CASE BOOK. 113 

years constantly at sea and in tropical climates, 
five years of which time have been on the coast 
of Africa. Seven years since I had a large tumor 
on my liver, and I may say, to the surprise of 
some of the medical men, "recovered." For 
years previous to this, and also ever since that 
illness, my bowels have been irregular ; I smoke 
a cigar after breakfast, and before going to bed, 
without which my bowels would not act. I 
have for years had a singing in my ears^ particu- 
larly the left. I feel after meals a heaviness, 
and after dinner an inclination to sleep. I have 
been very nervous, and am so still. I have been 
much addicted to intercourse, and have given 
way to solitary indulgence. At times I have in- 
tercourse, and without a doubt of fulfilling the 
part of a man. Since contracting marriage the 
doubts have such a hold on my imagination, that 
I feel sure, or almost so, that I could not perform 
that duty which is the only bond of happiness in 
that state. I should say that I am naturally of 
a strong constitution, I look remarkably young 
of my age ; am very active and well made ; and 
when feeling well can endure a good deal of 
fatigue. I enclose you the usual fee. Be so good 
as to direct to me, " To A. B., Post-Office." 
10* 



114 kotes from case book. 

Case 393. 

A retired merchant, troubled with nightly 
emissions, pains in the loins and back, specks 
floating before the eyes, and complete prostra- 
tion of the whole animal economy. He came 
under my care, and within fourteen days the 
patient wrote that he felt a decided improvement, 
and he continued gradually to amend during 
several weeks, when imprudently testing his virile 
powers, he caught a violent gonorrhoea, the cure 
of which delayed the case for nearly a month. 
Notwithstanding this drawback, in about two 
months from commencing he considered him- 
self fully cured — the gloom which overshadowed 
his mind has been entirely dispelled, he felt his 
intellect clear and vigorous, his feelings had 
acquired a warm and wholesome tone, and his 
physical powers were in every respect those of a 
sound and healthy man. 

Case 412. 

A clerk had suffered from gleet for five years. 
He had consulted several surgeons, and, accord- 
ing to their direction, had used a variety of in- 
jections and inward remedies. He had some- 



NOTES FROM CASE BOOK. 115 

times received temporary benefit from treatment, 
but upon fatigue, exposure to cold and wet, the 
use of stimulants, or sexual intercourse, the dis- 
ease never failed to re-appear. The discharge 
was ordinarily very trifling in amount, but by 
its long duration it had somewhat impaired his 
general health. He was, moreover, engaged to 
be married, but had been obliged to put off the 
affair from time to time, fearing that he was 
still in a state to communicate infection. 

Having subjected specimens of the discharge 
to a careful microscopic examination, in order 
to ascertain whether the affection was compli- 
cated with spermatorrhoea, I proceeded at once 
with active treatment of the case. I directed 
the use of the " Remedy," which, in ordinary 
and recent cases, is alone sufficient to control 
affections of this nature. But as the disease had 
become so inveterate, and the parts had acquired 
what may be called a morbid habit, I ordered a 
course of active and strengthening medicine. 
Regenerating treatment was finally used to in- 
vigorate the general system, and in three weeks' 
time I had the pleasure of declaring him to be 
radically cured and in a fit state for marriage. 



116 h0tes from case book* 

Case 457. 

u Da. Jacques— 

"Dear Sir:— I have lately contracted a very 
bad complaint, and am afraid I "have been im- 
properly treated here/ as I feel great uneasiness 
in my lower regions, as also an appearance of sec- 
ondary symptoms ; throat very sore, spit a great 
deal, and my skin much pimpled. Knowing your 
great skill in these cases, I now abandon myself 
to yon, and shall be glad of your advice and 
assistance per return post. Enclosed is your 
usual fee. 
" I am, dear sir, yours truly, J. B." 

A short course of Regenerating Medicine re- 
invigorated his constitution, and in four weeks 
he felt, to use his own words, "like himself 
again." 

Case 503. 

I have been in the filthy habit of practising 
self-pollution from about the age of 14, when at 
school, until I was 24. I then married, which 
is iiow about a year and a-half ago, but am 
ashamed to say that so completely had the habit 
taken hold of me that I have even (though not 



XOTES FROM CASE BOOK. 117 

often) practised it since that time, till lately in 
fact, when I procured a copy of your Science of 
Life. I must mention that I am naturally of good 
constitution, but for nearly twelve months past I 
have gradually been getting thinner and thin- 
ner, as though I was wasting away. I appear 
to be in excellent health, but am very speedily 
tired with the slightest exertion ; my appetite is 
poor, I have no energy, am extremely nervous, 
and frequently overcome by melancholy; my 
memory is becoming defective, and I have a very 
tiresome little cough, with a sort of choking 
sensation when attempting to ' read aloud, es- 
pecially after a meal ; the left testicle hangs a 
little lower than the right one, and after the 
urine has been allowed to stand for a time a 
white cloudy secretion appears to be floating 
about in it, and a sort of greasy looking scum 
forms on top. I am also troubled by frequent 
emissions during sleep, all which symptoms in- 
duce me to think I must be suffering from sper- 
matorrhoea, and trust you will be able to do 
something to relieve me. I applied to a medical 
man who is esteemed very clever in this neighbor-) 
hood, but he said he could not see any complaint, 
save my getting thin, for which he advised 



118 NOTES PROM CASE BOOK. 

change of air, and gave me quinine, t>ut no good 
effects have followed. 

The treatment thus referred to was unsuccess- 
ful, because it did not touch the deep-seated 
cause of the symptoms. 

Case 634. 

A bachelor, about the age of fifty, of good 
constitution, experienced a certain failing within 
a year or two. The approaches were so gradual, 
that he suspected it to be the natural decay of 
years. However, he resolved to consult a physi- 
cian. Not deriving much satisfaction, and hav- 
ing some notion of seminal discharges, with the 
method of detecting them, he requested that the 
urine might be examined. This was done ac- 
cordingly, and I believe zealously enough ; but 
without detection of the fluid suspected. It was 
pronounced positively that the animalculae were 
not to be seen. General tonics were administer- 
ed; which failing, after awhile, all treatment 
was discontinued. The patient came to me, in 
turn. After some preliminary inquiries, I pro- 
posed to examine the urine ; but he replied that 
nothing could result from that investigation, as 
it had already been inspected. I learned in 



K0TE8 FROM CASE BOOK. 119 

what way the specimen had . been collected, 
which was carelessly from the chamber utensih 
I therefore advised to collect the last few drops 
passed on getting out of bed in the morning ; 
and not only detected the Spermatozoa, but in- 
duced the patient himself to look through the 
microscope, who saw them as plainly as 1 did* 
To ascertain the cause is the first step towards 
the cure ; I applied my remedies accordingly ; 
and the result quite justified the prognosis. 

Case 891. 

I can no longer conceal from myself that I am 
suffering from Spermatorrhoea, the result of that 
wicked habit contracted even before I was in my 
teens ; I even forget how, and how early it was 
contracted, and although I have sometimes 
abandoned it for a time, I have always relapsed 
again into it, and have only lately been able to 
feel that I have at length mastered it. My age 
is now twenty-six, and although having been 
three years at the sea-side, every one congratu- 
lates me upon my health and appearance, I am 
quite conscious of the unreality of those appear- 
ances. My nerves are seriously impaired ; I have 
very frequent nocturnal emissions ; the spirit I 



120 NOTES FROM CASE BOOK. 

once possessed I am afraid is forever gone, and 
the sense of fatigue I experience on undertaking 
the smallest labor, and the flaccid feel of the 
muscles renders me doubtful of the possibility 
of their effective reparation; I cannot fix my 
attention on my business, make sad blunders, 
and get very excitable and ill-tempered. For 
the last few months, too, I have experienced a 
dull pain or uneasiness in the testicles, especially 
on the left side, and have occasional darting 
pains of a spasmodic character in the penis, as 
though they suddenly received a most severe 
and acute electric shock. 

In this case, although there were well marked 
local symptoms, the mischief had principally 
developed itself in the impairment of the nervous 
system. 

Case 1,121. 

Dr. Jacques : — I am suffering from spots and 
blotches on the face and body, caused, I believe, 
by syphilis some years ago, although I was sali- 
vated at the time, and thought myself perfectly 
well. Do you think you can do me any good ? 
If so, I will come over to see you. I may say 
my age is about 35. I am unmarried. My oc- 



NOTES FROM CASE BOOK. 121 

cupation requires me to be a great deal in the 
open air ; in fact, I am a farmer. Enclosed is 
your fee. Please to answer by return, and tell 
me candidly what you think of my case. 

Yours respectfully, P. Y. 

I wrote, requesting a personal interview, and 
accordingly, a few days afterwards, P. Y. intro- 
duced' himself. The spots and blotches on his 
face and body exhibited the true syphilitic 
character, and were exceedingly disfiguring in 
themselves, without taking after consequences 
into consideration. P. Y. became my patient, 
and followed my advice carefully. In six weeks 
he again wrote, stating that he was perfectly 
cured. 

Case 1,378. 

A young man, engaged in a large mercantile 
establishment where many hands were employed, 
consulted me a few months ago for an obstinate 
gleet. It was at once evident that he had been 
a votary of self-abuse, indeed he said he could 
scarcely escape, as all his companions were 
more or less addicted to the habit. Some two 
or three years back he read one of my books, 
and became thoroughly disgusted with the pro- 
11 



122 KOTES FROM CASE BOOK. 

pensity. He at length had recourse to illicit 
intercourse, and thus contracted gonorrhoea, 
when, through unskillful treatment, gleet was 
the sequelae. In this dilemma he consulted me. 
Kow, about this time his symptoms were com- 
plicated and many. He was extremely weak, 
losing flesh, headache, cold perspirations, eye- 
sight much affected, especially the left eye, 
frequent dizziness, especially when stooping, 
emissions, pains in the shoulders and spinal 
column, urine thick, passed frequently in small 
quantities. The result of my treatment was the 
complete recovery of this patient, and being 
restored to health, sought ur ill those young 
men whom he knew to be guilty of onanism — 
warned them of their danger, and induced them 
to apply to me for the necessary treatment. 
They all had the good sense to follow my in- 
structions, etc., and were cured. Thus through 
the candor, conscientiousness, and moral courage 
of one young man, a number of others were 
rescued from vice, disease and misery, and 
brought back to health and happiness. 

Header, do you know any youth who is gradu- 
ally succumbing to the effects of secret vice ? 
Let such net perish. without warning! 



NOTICE 

TO 

PATIENTS AND INVALID EEADEES, 



Dr. J. Jacques, having for many years exclu- 
sively devoted his attention to the treatment of 
the diseases of the generative and nervous 
system described in the preceding pages, may 
be consulted personally from ten in the morning 
till two, and from five in the evening till eight, 
daily, at his permanent residence, 148 West 
Lombard street, between Hanover and Sharp 
streets, Baltimore. 

The following directions are given to all who 
desire to consult Dr. Jacques : 

1. Hours of consultation are from 10 till 2, 
and from 5 till 8 in the evening. On Sunday 
from 10 till 2. — Or by special appointment. 

2. Dr. Jacques' fee for consultation is $5. 

3. Dr. Jacques may be consulted by letter; 
and patients at a distance are requested to be as 
minute as possible in describing the symptoms 



124 NOTICE TO PATIENTS 

of their cases, age, habits, occupation, &c, and 
if any treatment has been previously adopted. 
Much of Dr. Jacques' practice is carried on by 
correspondence, and he has been successful in 
Curing numerous cases which have been con- 
ducted by letter only. All letters must contain 
the consultation fee. 

4. Dr. Jacques has made arrangements by 
which the necessary remedies can be forwarded, 
safely packed and free from observation, to all 
parts of the world ; and it is his invariable cus- 
tom to destroy all correspondence, or to return 
it to the patient at the termination of each case. 
Patients may have letters and packages forward- 
ed by initials. The disclosure of a name is 
neither sought nor necessary ; the most perfect 
confidence may be relied on, so that no diffidence 
or timidity may prevent the application for pro- 
fessional relief. Patients are, however, requested 
to retain the s&me name or initials throughout 
the case, in order to prevent confusion. 

5. Dr. Jacques wishes to impress the impor- 
tance of one personal interview, even with pa- 
tients at a distance, more especially when it is 
necessary to make a microscopic or chemical 
analysis of the urine. In fact, this is of such 



AND INVALID READERS. 125 

importance that it would be advisable for those 
consulting him by letter to forward a small bot- 
tle per rail, carefully packed to prevent breakage 
(carriage paid), containing the urine passed m 

the morning. . 

6. Dr. Jacques, having no connection with 
any other firm, can only be consulted at his per- 
manent office, 148 West Lombard street, between 
Hanover and Sharp streets, Baltimore, Md. 




3*8*" -^^2: 



b\i THE 




f Science of Life: 



ON 



Nervous and Physical Debility 

AND 

SPECIAL DISEASES, 

THEIR CAUSES A.1STID CUKE, 
BEING A 

Synopsis of Lectures Delivered at the 
Museum of Anatomy, 

126 WEST BALTIMORE STKEET, BALTIMORE. 



Illustrated witli Oases. 



BY 

, DR. JACQUES, , 

hNo. 148 West Lombard Street, j 

Between Hanover and Sharp Streets. <¥ 

BALTIMORE, MD. ^^^ 




Baltimore Museum 



OF 



ANATOMY, 

126 W. BALTIMORE STREET, 

BALTIMORE, MD. 



This Institution Contains the Most Extraordinary Natural 
Wonders and Curiosities in the World, 

AND A 

Host Superb Collection of Anatomical Models and Specimens, 

Which convey to the mind, in the space of an hour or two, a more ac- 
curate knowledge of the Human Body, and the Mysteries 
of Creation, than years of reading, 

Open Daily, for Gentlemen Only, 

From 9 A. M. to 10 JP. M. 

DR. JACQUES, Principal, 

RESIDENCE, No. 148 WEST LOMBARD STREET, 

Between Hanover and Sharp Streets, 

BALTIMOKE, IS/LTD. 



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